


Down In The Valley

by BlueColoredDreams



Series: String Theory [10]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, F/F, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Service Animals, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-29 22:46:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 85,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12095085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueColoredDreams/pseuds/BlueColoredDreams
Summary: Snapshots of rebuilding.





	1. After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh, the fic that started off as a one shot that ended up spiraling into 20+k of slowburn awkward vignettes over the course of a year and a half. Whooo boy.  
> Title is from The Head and the Heart-- I've always wanted to use that song for Magnus and fuck yeah here I go.  
> This is continuing from SS/SG. And uh. Yes. SS/SG and QE are part of the same continuum. Been sitting on that for a moment but it always has been.

With the Hunger defeated, and the worst of the damage mitigated planet side, the Bureau members migrate upwards—each glass sphere sent down goes up in a crush of bodies, employees and civilians alike, and soon, the domes are above occupancy. Magnus has never seen the quad this full, _ever_ —not even during the carnival.

Which _is_ sort of what’s popped up in the wake of the Story and Song. Someone’s busted Pringles out of jail—maybe even Lucretia herself—he’s already started distributing drinks and potions; people are wild and jubilant, and someone is conjuring up a table and instruments. He’s crushed in a sea of bodies, all wanting to pat his back and shake his hand, friends and strangers alike. Above them, the sky is clear and the sun is brighter than ever. With a start, he remembers that the eclipse is today, too; exactly one year ago, they’d all gathered to watch and celebrate, only to be interrupted by the Hunger’s scouts.

This time, no one is looking up at the sky, and no existential horror will come screaming across the sky. All the attention is focused on them, and their friends, the ones who fought on the front lines, who were broadcast across the universe. 

To some, it’s foreign. He sees Barry blushing scarlet, Lup hovering behind his shoulders as people clap him on the back as they pass. Hurley and Sloane are eating up the attention, already causing trouble with Jess. Davenport is being carried up to the conjured stage, with people teasing him to sing his piece from the Story. He’s shaking his head, crossing his hands at the wrist and Magnus laughs. Taako’s eating it up nearby, and he’s…

Well, he’s used to being a hero; it feels a bit boastful to think this sort of thing is familiar, but as he grins to the fiftieth person who knows his name and face that he’s never met—he’s reminded of Raven’s Roost after the opposing forces surrendered. It was summer then, too.

Late summer, almost autumn, but the sun still blazed hot and he baked in his sweaty armor as people came up to him, over and over again, shaking his hand. Saying his name, thanking him. Passing him from hand to hand to each new person who wanted a piece of time with a hero who saved them all. They had all been _so_ happy.

The memory aches in the pit of his gut.

Back then, he’d had Julia with him. Julia who’d laughed and got her fair share of handshakes and claps on the back. There had been a festival, thrown together out of bits and parts and people’s backyards the same day—ramshackle at best, but hearty and full of laughter and ale. She had taken his hands in his as someone with a fiddle had started playing out of the main square’s tavern’s balcony, and spun him in the square. And it’s all gone.

It’s all gone now—the square, the tavern, the musician, Julia. Nothing more remains of them but rubble and the weight in his chest. It’s gone. 

What’s not gone is this: This world isn’t gone, this life, these people. His family, once lost to him. The future is still there, still unformed and waiting for him to take it in hand—for so long, he thought his future was just… gone. Gone in the still smoldering remains of Raven’s Roost. Sure, he kept on living, but only because he hadn’t yet died. There was no reason to. It was all gone.

Except it’s not. And it’s strange. It’s a feeling that’s been kindling inside of him for the past few months, with each lesson with Carey, with each sparring match with Killian, each late night jog that brings him around to wave at Avi, who works late on the weekends to monitor off-base romps on the others’ days off. Every time he insists to Angus that no, he’s not read a book in fifteen years (actually, it’s more, apparently; _whoops_ ) so he doesn’t have to worry about spoilers, whatever _those_ are. With each time Taako bitches him out for eating leftovers that aren’t his or he finds Merle being suspicious with a begonia. In each strangely intimate, weirdly sardonic conversation he’s ever had with Lucretia, who sometimes looks at the three of them with a fondness he could never quite place until now, a look he understands well now, in the aftermath, in retrospect—it’s always in retrospect with Lucretia, but that’s just how she _is_ sometimes, and he’d never known until now, and then he’d known it always.

He’d been so scared he was going to _lose_ all of it, ever since Refuge, only to realize that what he was struggling so hard to remember wasn’t some errant cult of power-hungry fools—they _were_ foolish, truly, but they were family. It was family he was handed in that sealed scroll. It was Barry and Fisher, and Merle and Taako, and even Lup—and Lucretia.

Lucretia. Oh, _Lucretia_. She’d called them her boys, and they were, but she was their Lucy too, and none of them had known.

And to him, it was more than that. He’d been more than just a family member, more than just a recruit.  And she is so much more than the Director, so much more than their quiet Lucy, and she…

He skims his eyes across the crowds for her, but he knows he won’t find her. Not in this hubbub, not after everything. If she’s on the quad at all, it’ll be on the edges, and when he doesn’t find her, he heads towards her office.

For the most part, the central quad has been cleared of most damage, but as he picks through the ruins of her receiving room (he winces, putting together the image of the Director sitting on the throne as he passes her dais—how much did it make her squirm in discomfort to do? How could she bear it? She’d never been like that, even when she started taking the lead more in their mission), it’s clear that no one has started cleaning up yet. Shattered glass and chunks of rebar litter the floor, the crater where Lup had obliterated the column that shattered the domed ceiling.  Scorch marks upon scorchmarks, splatterings of blood, an iridescent pool of Junior’s ichor where he’d dropped Barry’s flask. Lucretia’s sky blue robe, where it had slid off of her shoulders in the chaos.

He clamors over the wreckage and finds the door to her office absolutely gone, the room behind it trashed.

He finds her there, standing amidst the rubble that was once her office with her hands clasped around her staff, shoulders straight and her back tight. He sees the tautness of her jaw in the way her ears shift behind her hair, her carefully kept coif of curls unfurled and frizzing out in an uneven cloud around her face.

She is not crying, but he knows she is grieving. His first instinct is to glance towards their portrait, and he is relieved to see it intact—a little stained, and the frame is scratched, but it is still whole and it’s the only relic left of what they once were, before it all. Kept and carried all those years, and more.

She turns slowly, sighing as she meets his eyes. “Magnus, go back to the party,” she says gently.

“I’ve got this under control here,” she says, holding up her staff. It still glows with faint light, pulsing and flickering in wide arcs under the grain of the wood. “It seems like I was followed home by this guy. I hate to say I missed this thing before it showed right up in my office.”

She grins at him, lopsided and rueful but genuine, and already the light is fading away from the staff, leaving it white oak and worn grain. 

She doesn’t ask why he’s here, doesn’t try to explain why she’s here, alone. He knows, he knows her better than any of them even though she’s a stranger. He sees it on her face—she’s thinking about something, planning. He wishes he knew that look sooner, wishes it took him less time to realize there was something wrong with her in those last few weeks together, that he'd gone to her sooner, been a little less precise with the last duck, gotten to her before his journal had been slipped into the water.He could have helped her; she wouldn’t have had to be alone.

He stops.

No. No he doesn’t. He can’t change what’s happened—he _won’t_. Not just because this is the path that led them to the end, but Julia. Raven’s Roost. The friends he'd made. 

 _Julia_. This let him meet her, let him love her. Lucretia had put him somewhere he found love and solace and immeasurable peace, even if it was for a short time. 

“I wanted to find you,” he says. He puts his hands in his pockets. “Just to let you know I remember now.”

She closes her eyes slowly, and she shakes her head. “There’s a lot to remember,” she says softly. “Let’s keep it vague.”

He pauses then nods. She kneels onto the floor and begins to gather books off of the floor, brushing off shattered splinters of wood from their covers.

“Let me help,” he offers, striding from the doorway to kneel beside her, scooping up books.

“I have—”

“A system,” he says, and they freeze. He looks at her, her dark eyes wide and her lips trembling ever so slightly. Lines trace her eyes and brows and he aches to realize, for the first time since meeting her as the Director, that there are far less laughter lines than he ever imagined she would have. Somehow, in the few moments they’d imagined growing old, he’d… he’d imagined her _softer_ , less sharp angles and wiry muscle, with rounder cheeks and happier eyes.

He watches as she shakes her head, finally giving a soft chuckle of laughter. 

“I think I may need to redo the whole system, Magnus,” she whispers. She picks up a hunk of wood and sets it on her lap, tracing the carved edges on it slowly. “If you would rather help me than party it up, I don’t think I can stop you.”

He watches her fingers and tears his eyes away with a start, recognizing the crude carving from all those years ago. He’d hated those shelves in cycles afterwards—he’d pleaded with her to let him remake them; they were lopsided, they were sloppy, they wouldn’t hold up, but she never relented. She’d made him leave those shelves as they were, and they had lasted nearly fifty years.

Until now. She’s kept his shelves, all this time, and he’d been in her office, he’d walked past them, and she’d spoken to him here, right by them, and neither of them had ever…

Lucretia leans forward to start picking up scattered papers from the floor, and a necklace swings from around her neck with the movement, chain long and thin.

She grabs it suddenly, her inhale sharp and guilty, and she stuffs it back down the neck of her dress where it falls, hidden, under the fabric of her robes.

It’s too late to hide it, though—Magnus had already seen the ring, and he knows, deep in his gut. They have always been each other’s other half, equally mirrored in action and restraint—somehow, it feels right to see it. It frees his tongue a little, eases the ache in his shoulders.

“I love my wife,” he says softly. “Even though she’s gone. Lucretia, you… it’s okay if you moved on.”

She looks at him and shakes her head slowly. “Magnus, I… I’m tired,” she confesses. “I’m sorry.”

And they don’t talk about it.

It’s the first of many times that they don’t.


	2. What's Left

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is interested in reading me ramble about this, hit me up on tumblr and I'll post a bit about it.

Of all the people she expected to see come through her office, Lucas was not one of them.

Or rather, hope is a different thing than expectations. She hadn't expected, but she _had_ hoped; she had hoped with every glance she caught of him, every mention that Angus or Lup made of him, that he would come to see her. 

She rises from her desk, hands flat on her papers. “Lucas,” she breathes, “Lucas, I’m so glad—”

He holds a hand up. “I don't want to hear it, Lucretia,” he says. “I'm not here for personal reasons.”

Lucretia sits back down, biting the inside of her cheek. _Not here for personal reasons_ , but he'd been gone for months, she'd thought he was dead for months, and he doesn't want to even acknowledge it.

Just like that, it's like losing Maureen again. Like losing him again. The hope that had started to bloom inside her, like a flower opening its petals, wilts and dies and is left with something bitter and dark.

“I see,” she murmurs. Lucas is not the only family member she has that has not forgiven her.

This isn't anything new but, god, Maureen always said he looked like his father, but all she sees is Maureen. He sounds like her, holds himself the same way she did and she misses her so much. She misses him, too—she misses the three of them, together. Their weird little family that fell apart so fast.

“What can I do for you, then?”

“I need Mom’s journals back. I know you have them.”

“I—I do but, but, Lucas…”

_That's all I have of her._

He knows that. He has to—all she has of Maureen's personal effects were the journals he slammed on her desk. The letters and entires and all the work they'd done together.

His face softens just for a second.

“I'll give them back,” he mutters. “I don't want your stupid love notes. I want the research notes; I'm starting to archive everything and make it public. Mom always wanted that; but Faerun wasn't ready. Well. They will be now.”

“She'd be proud of you, Lucas, I know she would be,” she says softly.

“You! I- you wouldn't have to say that if you had just—”

Lucas cuts himself off and scowls fiercely. Lucretia feels like her heart has stopped beating. He sighs and rubs his hand over his face, pushing his glasses up into his hair.

“Lucretia, I’m, I don’t forgive you,” he says. “But Mom… Mom would be… this is what she wanted all along, and. I don't think she'd… if you had done this sooner,” he pleads, voice cracking, “She wouldn't have died, Lucretia.”

Lucretia remains silent, throat tight.

“Okay,” she whispers. “I understand.”

Lucas opens his mouth to say something, but then closes it. He repeats the process and then shoves his hands deep in his pockets and shakes his head. “I… I’ll be back later,” he says, voice still uneven.

“Okay,” she repeats, feeling far away. Lucas has always been brusque, distrustful, but she still thinks of him in those few years when everything was right, everything was good, and he was the goofy, gangly teen that she met then, who let her hug him and teach him. She held him up when he was inoculated, she held his hand when Maureen was ravaged by what they had done in an attempt to do something good. She’d helped him clean, patch himself up, listened to him talk about Maureen and living in the woods and missing his father. 

For a while, he had been her son. 

And she’d lost that. She’d lost it. She’s so exuberantly glad that he’s _alive_ but it feels like losing him each time he brushes her aside.

“…I’ll see you later,” Lucas mumbles, turning his back to her. He leaves in silence and she slowly lowers her head to her desk, staring blankly at the papers before her, plans and correspondences and official documents that mean nothing to her, not really.

Maureen died almost a year ago—she died hating her for what she’d done. She died just months after their fight after Phandalin was destroyed, and spent that time half ravaged by the Philosopher’s Stone, while the other half of her hated her so emphatically that she’d made sure that Lucas never let Lucretia forget it, that the Bureau members would know.

She’d died hating the system that allowed her husband to be sent out to die at the whims of a man aiming for power, that the system hoarded money and information from people, that her family was held back by it all. By the system that let the Relic Wars fester on their surface, too enamored with power to stop the destruction. And now, it’s all being dissolved. And Maureen would never be able to see it.

All because Lucretia had traded one family for another. And now she has neither.

She pulls her ring from beneath her robes—she feels foolish for wearing it again. She’d locked it up out of grief, but she’d needed its comfort when she sent the boys to Wonderland. She’d been so scared, so lonely, that even the weight of it against her sternum had been enough for her, to remind her of why she was sending them, to remember that she had been happy once here, that it could be worth it.

She turns it between her fingers. She slips it from the chain and slides it on her finger, feeling foolish for doing so. It doesn’t mean anything, not really. Maureen had thrown her ring into the trash after Phandalin, then returned all her things the next day after locking her out of the lab—out of her _home_. And now all she has left of her is the ring and a box of journals and letters that she has to give away.

She wanted to tell Lucas no—those letters, even the research, are private. The notes scrawled on the margins of equations and experiment procedures are private, small jokes and love letters and proof—it’s proof that Maureen loved her once, that she was loved and cherished again. That it won’t be as special if he picks through them, removes their anecdotal scribbles for others to read. Each experiment, each gadget, was built with love and care and their laughter—even the Cosmoscope.

But how pathetic is that? How pathetic is she that all she can do is pitifully clutch onto the words of days long gone? That she’s old and alone, wearing her estranged, late wife’s ring? That she can’t move on?

She sighs and picks up her pen and gets back to work, blinking back the burn behind her eyes.  

She gets three-quarters through her current pile of paperwork before her doors burst open with a clatter that makes her start and blot ink across the letter to Sterling that she was drafting.

She swears under her breath, first at the ink stain, and then at the sight of Taako strolling up to her desk. He’s followed, a lot more sedately, by Magnus.

“I’m gonna make this quick, lady,” he says, holding out his wrist. “Lup’s bods’ gonna be done cookin’ soon and we’ve got plans with the continent. Get fucking rid of your gaudy little shackle, Lucy, baby.”

She sighs and sets her pen aside. “Certainly,” she says. “It was never meant to be that, but. You’re not the first to want it removed.”

“Who the fuck blames them?” he hisses. “Good on them.”

She holds out her hand for Taako’s wrist. He starts to offer her his arm, then snatches hers instead, lifting her hand high. She feels ice down her spine like a cast spell—her stomach drops and her heart flips. He’s glaring right at her ring, eyes sharp and scrutinizing each detail.

“Someone married _you_?!” Taako laughs, his voice high with disbelief. He drops her hand like it’s something dead. “Who’d be _that_ stupid?”

She closes her eyes, taking as deep of a breath as she can. “Taako, your bracer,” she says softly.

“I don’t see anyone around that you could have married—did they figure out your game and leave you high and dry, Lucy?” he leers.

She curls her fingers into her palms, pressing her nails into her skin. Magnus shifts uncomfortably in the back of the room.

“Taako,” he mutters in warning. Her heart jolts at the realization that he’s only come along to play referee. But for whose sake? It would be silly to think it was hers; Lup probably sent him along. “You just want your bracer off. Get it off and go.”

“Nah, this is much better,” he laughs, voice thready and cruel. There’s an edge to it that Lucretia recognizes as borderline hysteria. “Speak up—you had so much to say before, so let's have a chat! What happened here—or are you pretending to be married to Maggie? He had a wife you know, if you hadn’t ripped us all out of our home, maybe it could have been you—oh, but you had all that time and it never happened, so maybe he always knew you were a frigid little homewrecking piece of—”

“I would prefer you not bring me into this,” Magnus cuts in, voice low.

“Enough!” she snaps. It feels like the room is spinning around her. Her stomach churns and it feels like her face is burning. She feels thoroughly humiliated, not only from Taako cutting right to the truth of the matter, but that Magnus… gods, she's pathetic. She'd felt safe with him in the room, thinking he'd cut in for  _her_ sake, not for his own and…

“ _Enough_! I’m… I’m aware, Taako, that you are angry with me, and justifiably so. But don’t, don’t. Don’t. I have… it’s enough, Taako. She left me. You were right. She left me when she realized the depth of what I had done, what I would do. And then, shortly after, she died. She’s dead, Taako, and I—I would like to not, I do not want to have this conversation… Just give me your arm.”

“Good,” he says viciously. “Good, now you know how it fucking feels. I hope she let everyone know how terrible you are.”

“Enough,” she snaps, a vicious anger coursing through her. For the first time, she isn't wishing he killed her; for the first time, she wants to hurt him right back. “You killed her Taako! Are you happy now? You killed her, all of you, together, you took her from me—your absolute _carelessness_ in Phandalin—”

“I did _what_?! Carelessness? How _dare_ you—”

Her voice rises over his for the first time in a hundred and ten years. “You took her from me, it was your- it was your fucking Stone killed her! You and Lup killed her, almost killed this whole planet! She would still be alive if it weren't for the Relics, and I… _Leave_.”

There’s a moment of silence where all she can hear is the blood in her ears—she sees Magnus’ mouth move, form words—so does Taako’s, but she can’t hear them. She can’t hear them at all. Black dances on the edges of her sight and the anger leaves her as soon as it hit, leaving her feeling empty and hollow. She wants to sink into the floor and curl beneath her desk, away from it all. 

“Taako, you’ve done enough,” Magnus says, and Taako rolls his eyes.

He holds out his wrist out then, and she raises one shaking hand to the bracer and taps it gently. It splits and falls onto her desk with a clatter.

There's something odd in his face, an echo of something she almost recognizes:  But surely there is no reason left for Taako to pity her at all, to feel guilty. It would be too close to kindness if he did.

And then he’s gone, and she still hears her heart in her ears, pounding away as she shakes.

Magnus puts his hand on her shoulder. “Lucy, breathe,” he murmurs.

She shakes her head, her breath rattling away in her throat. “Don't call me Lucy, not, not now. How are you not—why aren’t you mad at me, too?”

“…Isn’t much point in it,” he says slowly, rubbing the back of her neck with his thumb. “Not when you’re… you’re so shook up.”

“He’s right,” she whispers. “I’m so angry with him though—I _know_ he’s right, but—we fought over Phandalin, and then the Stone, and… it’s easy to blame him.”

“I know,” he says softly. “It’s easier to do that than realizes the faults in yourself.”

She sniffs and puts her face in her hands, shoulders shaking under his palm. All she has is her faults, it seems. She's falling under the weight of them, like she always has. 

“I have nothing left of her but this,” she says. “All I wanted was a family again, and I—I thought I’d never be happy again, after leaving you in Raven’s Roost, and… once upon a time, she loved me so much.”

“Lucretia, can I ask who… who it was? I think I know, but I would like it if you told me,” he says softly.

She shakes her head, over and over. “I can’t, Magnus, I can’t—I can’t even think about it anymore.”

He nods and rubs her shoulders in slow circles. “Okay, I understand,” he says gently.

She looks up at him, eyes damp and red and she sniffs. “Are you… do you want it gone too?”

“My bracer? Well, I mean, I have still have it. But, I’d like to keep it, even when I go,” he says slowly. “But it’s not on me anymore, though.”

“So you’re leaving? You don’t want to stay on with the Bureau?”

Magnus shakes his head. “I… I want to rebuild Raven’s Roost,” he admits. “I feel like I owe the town that, owe Julia and Steven that.”

Lucretia nods and takes his hand and squeezes it. “If you need anything, _please_ let me help. Magnus, you… you’re my family too and that… that’s all I’ve got, are these pieces of us,” she says softly. “I will help you, I swear.”

He grips her hand and covers their fingers with his free one. “I gotcha, Lucretia. I’ll ask.”

She nods and lets her fingers slip from his, ring silver and bright on her finger, cheeks damp.

He doesn’t ask about her wife again; not for a long time. 


	3. Restoration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I typed up and posted some notes about this fic [here](http://bluecoloreddreams.tumblr.com/post/165426442584)

The months bleed by in a blur of activity. Magnus frquents the Bureau's base to help clean up, to help rebuild the domes, caught between the desire to stay close and to go his own way. He splits his time instead, in Taako (and Barry and Lup's) temporary apartment in Neverwinter, volunteering at a animal shelter in exchange for free lessons on training given by a halfling named Avery who's promised him a puppy if he can train the shelter's most reticent, grumpy stray. The rest is spent up on the moon base, helping clean and train the flood of new recruits. 

He doesn't see too much of Lucretia; she's busier than ever, and she's often away. He doesn't worry much because she's always accompanied by either Carey or Killian when she goes. It's just odd to think of the Director out and about. She so rarely left her quarters in the time they worked as Reclaimers.

For Lucretia, though, it isn't that surprising.

He catches Carey coming out of her office late one night as he jogs the quad; he makes her way over when she waves.

She yawns, shaking her head. “The heck are you up for?”

He shrugs, not entirely willing to admit he woke up shaking in a cold sweat. “Dunno. I just gotta work out the extra energy. Is uh, Lucretia back?”

“Mmhm, she's writing up the last of the reports.”

“In her office?”

“Yeah, but don't keep her up, Killian will murder you. She wants to like, adopt her.”

Magnus snorts. “She's way older than you two.”

“Doesn't mean she takes care of herself,” Carey says with a shrug. “Killian’s been here since the beginning; she loves the Direc—Lucretia, fuck that's still weird.”

“Yeah, I sort of noticed she's been frosty to uh… well. Taako. Lucas,” he says.

Carey shrugs. “You should ask her about it. It's a cool ass story, as regular non-alien ones go.”

Magnus nods and high fives Carey as they part ways. He jogs to Lucretia’s office. He can still smell the fresh paint when he opens the door; she hunches over her desk, pen moving over a piece of parchment.

She looks up as the door closes. She looks exhausted; she's already tied her hair back for the night, and her glasses rest around her neck on their chain. She’s got ink on the sleeves of her robe, and they look a bit like she'd rolled around in the dirt in them.

“Magnus,” she says in surprise. “Goodness it's late.”

“I wanted to catch you before you left again,” he says, making his way to sit on the stool by her desk.

“I hope you haven't been waiting for me to come back,” she murmurs. “You could have called.”

“Nah, it’s… it’s just, I think I,” he says slowly. “It’s time for me to go, I think.”

The look on her face is briefly pained but she sets down her pen and nods. “Yes,” she says gently. “I’ll miss you.”

“I mean, we’ll still be in contact! Geesh!”

“No, I mean, I… I enjoy you being on base. I hoped, I… I wanted everyone… I would have liked to spend—”

She shakes her head and rubs her temples slowly. “No matter,” she mumbles. “That isn't important.”

“Lucretia,” he warns. There's an ache forming in the pit of his gut, the one that spreads and climbs up his chest each time he thinks about how alone she'd been without them, only for everyone to scatter away just as they'd come back together. He doesn't think she even got a full day with all of them together—Taako’s outright animosity, Davenport’s awkward silences, and Barry’s insistence on pretending she just didn’t exist anymore had made sure she knew she wasn't welcome the few times they had gathered to catch up.

All of them know now that Lucretia had gotten married too—Magnus had tried to include her by asking her what she’d done during their time apart, and when she’d clammed up, Taako had interjected with the information. Lup wasn’t happy that he'd done that, and bless Merle, he’d wanted to meet them, and Lucretia shook her head as her jaw tightened.

She left soon after.

He hasn’t been spending as much time with her as he would have liked to. He knows Merle felt the same way, but he had to leave—he couldn't keep his kids away on the moon for forever. Lup probably does too, but where Taako and Barry go, she does too, and they left as soon as she had a body to leave with.

And now he’s going to leave her here alone again.

He hadn’t come with the intentions of leaving, but he knows he is. Better to do it now than later; the itch to move has crawled up in him, like ants under his skin. He has to do it before this ache swallows him whole.

“I'm going in the morning. To Raven’s Roost.”

She nods. “I meant what I said,” she murmurs. “If you need any help at all, let me know.”

“Yeah,” he says. He stands slowly, looking down at her; she looks older than ever, despite not looking too old at all most days. Exhaustion and grief have carved a new face on her bones, one that Magnus barely recognizes. She isn't his sweet-faced Lucy anymore, his rowdy girl with soft cheeks and warm smiles. Sometimes he feels like he barely knows her, but then she’ll do something, and his heart sings, yes yes, it’s you.

“Go to sleep, Lucretia,” he whispers.

“Soon,” she promises. “Killian will be disappointed if I don't. Goodnight, Magnus. And good luck, I'll be thinking of you.”

He nods, throat too tight to reply. He leaves her quarters, and goes to his own, sleeping deep and, thankfully, dreamlessly.

He leaves in the morning. He takes the trip on foot, from Neverwinter where Avi set his transport down, so he can get supplies.

The full ten day ride stretches into weeks. It still is not enough time to prepare him. Years and weeks, and an entire century of destruction behind him, and it is not enough.

He stands at the bottom of the trail like he had years before.

He is no more able to undertake this alone than he was back then. It’s too much, it’s too large to even piece together in his mind. Even now, knowing and possessing his full capabilities, the idea of what he wants is so large that his mind slips over its edges, unable to take hold at all.

He stands, looking at the ruins, up at the ghost town that was his home, at the boulders and rubble that still hold parts of weather-beaten and ruined signs, bleached wood and wrought iron that’s faded to verdigris that spell out shops and homes and everything in between. Plants grow out of the detritus at the bottom of the canyon the town roosted over.

He sits at the mouth of the trail and stares up. He keeps trying to think of a place to start—he could move a boulder here, or cut down a tree there, but he can’t move. The bridges are out on the trail.

He can’t move.

Days pass.

He sits stock still in the same place. His fire burns out and he forgets to eat as he thinks and thinks and thinks, still failing to grasp the drive that he knows is there, underneath the weight of it all.

He is alone and trying to build a town, trying to rebuild something that was once wonderful and full of life. But he is just Magnus, and who is he against the ruins of a town of thousands?

Is this how it was for her? Is this how enormous of a weight the Relics were, that the War, the world, the Bureau was on Lucretia? Did she ever feel the impossible weight of her task and despair?

She didn't. He won't. And to give up now, to turn his back on their home would only be a slight to Julia's memory.

He eats when he tries to stand, but ends up so dizzy that he has to sit. He waits, then decides to hike up to see how far the trail is clear for. 

He makes it about a half mile before he turns around at the sight of a tattering of enchanted fabric under a rockslide.

He knew the merchant who sold those clothes; he’d bought Julia a shirt from him, to stand up to the forges, to camping, to her habit of dropping food because she used her hands to talk. It feels a bit like remembering the skeleton in Wave Echo Cave, and knowing now that it was Lup. 

He stumbles back down to his campsite, feeling sick.

He lies at the foot of the trail, staring up at the spires under the night sky. One moon. Two moons.

Lucretia. Julia. He can’t do anything without them, even if it’s just their silent support—he needs them, Julia in spirit and Lucretia in person, his friends, his family.

He waits for sunrise.

When the sun rises, he rolls over and digs his bracer from the bottom of his pack, and for like he has for months, hits the button to summon a ride to the base.

Lucretia doesn’t even ask any questions when he arrives, covered in dirt and unshaven, in clothes a week old, smelling like smoke with tear tracks down his gritty face.

“I can’t do it alone, Lucretia, I never should have thought I could,” he says.

“I understand,” she murmurs gently. “Tell me what you need, I’ll do it.”

And from there, it’s easy. He knows exactly what he needs, what he wants, how it needs to be done—she listens and takes notes and makes him tea and occasionally makes suggestions. By the end of the night, when she sends him away for a bath and a much needed night of sleep, she’s already gotten in contact with who they need, the project ready to go forward in days instead of the months he thought it would take.

As he sinks into his old bed, he wonders if Lucretia had made plans to rebuild Raven’s Roost already, but had sat on them when he said he’d wanted to do it alone.

Or maybe she just was that good. He thinks, maybe, it’s both.

He helps her arrange everything, from gathering the scattered citizens, to arranging the supplies and the campsites they’ll stay in. The Bureau will help with the first wave, making the town habitable, making sure the water is clean and running and that the infrastructure is sound in the areas that were abandoned. And then the project goes to him.

He has to wheedle a bit, but he manages to summon up the entire crew to help. They know what it means to him, and he thinks, that maybe, this could be a chance for them all to rebuild themselves too.

The day before they’re set to begin, Lup and Barry and Kravitz clear the rubble, removing the years old remains.

There are no bones left in the Craftsman’s Corridor. The firebombing had reduced everything to ash ages ago. He's relieved, in a way. He’d buried Julia and Steven a long time ago—if there was anything left, he doesn’t think he’d survive them finding it.

Taako helps feed the crews, sweeping in from his own reestablishment of his show and brand and he even brings along Angus. There’s a tense moment where he’s setting out bowls for everyone and he leaves out Lucretia—Magnus had been talking to her about coordinating efforts on just the old Craftsman’s Corridor and Taako sets down a bowl in front of him and walks on.

Lucretia’s voice cracks and she falls silent and Magnus is hit with a surge of anger so hot and sudden that it scares him. Lucretia must see it on his face, because she gently touches him on the inside of his wrist and shakes her head, eyes following Taako’s progress with a resigned look of sorrow.

“Lucretia, you’re going to just let him do that?” he whispers. He thought that Taako would at least be above this, because it’s public, it’s far pettier than he normally is, and he thought that they’d… here, at least… they’d work together. At least for him. He had hoped so much.

“Food’s up homies, dig in,” Taako says and snaps his fingers with a flourish. The bowls fill up with soup, and it smells delicious and familiar and nostalgia hits Magnus so hard it _hurts_. He hears Lucretia make a noise of disgust, and _oh, that’s right_.

She’s hated this dish for _ages_ , after trying to eat it after being violently ill, only to relapse. It was no fault of anyone—but ever since, Taako had made a point to make Lucretia something different when he made the soup, and…

Taako is in front of them, with a plate of sandwiches that he sets in Lucretia’s direction with a wrinkle of his nose.

“You _thought_ ,” he sneers at her, pleased with just the small show of humiliation. “But unlike you, Lup gives a shit. You better thank her for this.”

And then he’s gone and Lucretia smiles to herself as she wipes her eyes before picking up her sandwich in satisfaction. He watches her, agape, then Taako’s retreating form as Lup scowls at him and smacks his butt with the wooden soup ladle at the campfire, then back at Lucretia, who toasts her sandwich Lup’s way.

“Are you—are you all right with that?” he gapes at her.

“That’s as close to civility as I’m ever going to get,” she says with a shrug. Her hands are shaking, but he can’t bring himself to comment on them—it almost feels cruel to, because otherwise, she’s playing off the entire incident with poise and grace.

He gently pats her knee, giving her a soft smile.

He doesn’t sleep that night, and neither does she—they see each other as they pass in the night. She’s idly staring up at the stars and he jogs past her at least three times before the sun rises.

If it were a different time, he’d spend the night like they used to when neither of them could sleep. They’d sit out on the deck—or if the plane was welcoming enough, out somewhere alone, under a myriad of stars in grasses that were greens and blues and lilacs and golds and watch the stars wheel overhead.

They’d charted the stars here, too, in the first few weeks, before the Light fell, before this plane fell to shit. Just like they would in each new world since they started sharing their sleepless nights, they snuck down off the ship and found somewhere open and flat and spread out blankets and laid against each other, tracking the arc of the sky. They made up stories to go with what they saw, always and forever disappointed with the real constellations—for the ones they made up were just theirs.

There are entire patterns here in Faerun that he’d been blind to for ten years, looking up at the stars he and Lucretia had jotted down and drawn into shapes, giggling sleepily together as they piled back into one of their beds, a loose tangle of limbs until they didn’t—until the Light fell and they all shattered into seven pieces of themselves.

Until she picked apart their own constellations and fed the stars to Fisher, wiping their skies a blank blue.

He could sit with her, he supposes. But it just doesn’t feel right anymore. Or rather, it feels so right that it is disconcerting.

So he passes her, each time with a heavier and heavier feeling in his gut as she looks up at the clear sky above, so close yet so far away from them both.

The morning comes quickly despite his insomnia, and the camp moves up the trail led by he and his friends, plant growth and boulders easily removed by magic and sheer force. They reach the top of the ridge, and the canyon opens up before them. The view is still spectacular, if not slightly marred by the ruins.

He lets Lucretia step up beside him. She unsheathes her staff from its holster on her back and she motions for them to give her room; most everyone steps back, but Magnus stays, shoulder to shoulder with her as she brings her staff down hard on the rocky ground at their feet. Light spiders out from the impact, and out of her staff, and wind howls at their backs as the spell activates, and just like that, the brides into, and within, Raven’s Roost are rebuilt.

The crowd of refugees from the town whoop in appreciation behind them as he looks down at her. Her fingertips are outlined in the glow from her staff; he grins a little ruefully at her as he claps her back. She peers at him from behind her golden glasses, then she grins at him with a fondness that cracks his heart open in his ribs.

“Well,” she whispers to him. “Go on. It’s your show now.”

And it is. He grips her shoulder and leans his forehead against hers. “Thank you, Lucy,” he whispers. “Thank you.”

She shakes her head slowly, blinking rapidly. “Oh Magnus, don’t thank me for this, not when I had a hand in it too. Go on, go.”

He steps forward, and from there, it’s easy.

Well, as easy as restoring an entire town is, but with the Bureau’s help, the first phase is completed in a matter of weeks rather than months or years. He even has a decent framework for a house put down in the newly rebuilt town-square where the Hammer and Tongs was—it won’t be the Craftsman’s Corridor any longer, but he’s fine with that.

Once the first phase is complete, the night before everyone is set to part ways, Lucretia taps his shoulder at dinner and leads him off.

“Here,” she murmurs, once they’re a good distance away. “I met her. Your wife—Julia. I met her several times, and…  So you have something.”

She hands him a small package; in it is a portrait, graphite and watercolor of Julia. There is a letter opener, the handle polished wood and filigreed silver and steel.

“I frequented the shop,” she murmurs. “And, I have… I have more. I have pieces you made and things Steven made but… this was the only thing I could get my hands on that she’d done. I'm sorry it's not more, Magnus.”

“No,” he says, feeling his eyes begin to burn with tears. “No this is… this is more than… Oh, Luce, thank you.”

He throws his arms around her tightly as he cries, and she winds her arms around his shoulders, rocking them back and forth on her heels.


	4. Parting Words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK fixed the formatting snafus!

They go their separate ways after that. Somehow, despite their days on the Starblaster being long gone, it feels just like it used to: They would split up at the beginning of a cycle, confident that if anything went wrong, at least in a year they would see each again.

Maybe it’s knowing there’s a reason for them to meet up, maybe it’s habit. But it doesn’t feel lonely at all as they part ways. It feels a little odd to say goodbye, actually. They never used to; they would lay their plans out, Davenport would nod to himself and dismiss them, and that would be that.

Lucretia stands beside the glass sphere that brought them to Neverwinter. She has her own things to do here, too, but she’s going to ferry him back and make the trip twice, because he’d wanted to come along and she’s the type of person that wouldn’t make him drive himself.

Lup, Barry, and Taako spirit themselves away (quite literally, considering Lup and Barry’s new deal with the Raven Queen and Kravtiz) to Taako’s apartment. Lup blows kisses, and Magnus reaches out and mimes tossing one back to her, earning himself a bird and a raspberry.  Taako walks backwards and waves to everyone, then points to Lucretia and mouths _not you_. Barry just claps Magnus on the shoulder after parting with Davenport; despite spending weeks working with her in Raven’s Roost—sometimes even _together—_ he still reverts to pretending she doesn’t exist when he doesn’t have to talk with her.

Magnus knows an animosity going on that long is hard to forgive. As much as it feels like it's just another cycle, it isn't, and it isn't guaranteed that they’ll all make it back. He wants to shake them, shake Lucretia, tell them that this could be the last time, this could be the last thing they ever say to each other. It's hard enough to live with an ‘ _I love you’_ ; he can't fathom having to live with silence. Taako and Barry had to live with _back soon_ for so long—even longer for Barry—so how could they all just let this slip?

Maybe they just don't care, but he knows they do—they're angry at her because they loved her.

Davenport shakes their hands firmly, but Magnus doesn’t let go, instead kneeling to draw him into a tight hug. “Punch some sharks, Capt’n.”

Davenport snorts, “That’s not my particular MO, Magnus.”

“Enjoy yourself out there,” Magnus answers. “Shark wrestling is where it's at.”

Davenport snorts and shakes his head with a grin as he steps back. Magnus stands and, for the first time, gives him a real salute.

And then he’s gone.

Merle claps Magnus on the back and makes Lucretia kneel so he can hug her properly. He hears her start to sniffle, so he turns his back to them as Merle chuckles at her.

“It’s not forever, doofus,” Magnus says to her once Merle trots off to where Heckuba, Mookie, and Mavis are waiting at a nearby café to hash out visitation details.

She wipes her eyes. “I just wish…” her voice trails off and she shakes her head. “You’re right,” she whispers. “It won't be for forever. It won't.”

Magnus knows when she’s holding back, sees the way she bites her lip, recognizes how she’s cut herself off, cut off her own desires.

What does she wish?

He wants her to voice it, to say it, to stop locking herself up from what she wants. She wants her family again, but she won't let herself admit it. She refuses to.

It's been weeks and weeks since he remembered her, remembered how he loved her once, remembered that once, he knew her down to what felt like her very soul. He knows what her unspoken words _mean_ but she won't tell him outright.

Months, and they haven't talked about it. Lucretia’s barely spoken up about herself—she says that she doesn’t need to, not really. She’s putting up a whole, _my actions will speak for themselves_ thing as she repurposes the Bureau, and it’s all well and fine, and most people buy into it.

But most people haven’t had a hundred years with her.

Magnus thinks of the ring on the chain around her neck—she keeps it under her clothes, but sometimes he’ll catch the edge of the fastening over the hem of her robes and he knows it’s there. It’s there, like his own.

He views his as a treasure, a single token linking him to something important. He wonders if Lucretia keeps hers as a shackle.

He wishes she wouldn't leave them with words unspoken anymore, but Lucretia has had too much practice with silence.

They’re quiet as she pilots them back to Raven’s Roost. He watches her in profile, and if she notices him watching her, she doesn’t comment on it. She just steers, her eyes checking the lay of the land against her compass readings, adjusting as necessary. The continent spreads out under them, around them, eventually curving away into haze.

He remembers standing at the helm with her before, during one of her shifts. He remembers the beads of sweat that would well up as she clutched the wheel with shaking knuckles, looking out with fright. He remembers how she would shake sometimes, but could guide the ship smoothly away from danger if she had to. He remembers standing on the deck with her, under endless galaxies of stars, of slipping his hand in hers on the timeless plane, as she stared out at the plane of magic sparkling on the horizon, coloring her eyes purple in its light. Of all the times he would just sit and watch her, of all the nights she sat and watched him.

“Are you okay that they didn't say goodbye?”

Her eyes flick towards him and she sighs. “I have to be,” she murmurs. “…what happened to ‘it’s not forever’?”

“It isn't,” he says firmly. “But. Sometimes. Sometimes things go wrong and… I wish… sometimes I think about the last thing I said to Julia. I was so sure I'd be back, she'd be there. I told her I loved her, but not how much she meant.”

Lucretia's fingers tighten against the steering mechanism. “Oh, Magnus, she knew; I'm sure of it,” she whispers. “There's no way she couldn't, with you loving her.”

He folds his hands tightly against each other, popping his knuckles absently. “I guess. I could have brought her back in the fight but, the timing…”

“It wasn't the right time?”

“No,” he murmurs. “She wouldn't have wanted that, anyway. Like the Chalice.”

Lucretia makes a vague noise of ascent and Magnus watches her.

“What was the last thing you said to Maureen Miller?”

Lucretia shakes her head, jaw tight. “No, Magnus.”

He covers her hand with his own.

“Magnus, I'm not like you, I'm not good. I—I pushed her. I tested her. I _abandoned_ her. We fought. How could you even face me if you knew?”

“Lucretia, you… you aren't a bad person,” he says softly.

Lucretia brings her hand up to her eyes and she makes a noise like a whimper. “What did I do to lose your trust, Mar? What did I do? Please, don't do this to us.”

And she shakes her head. “And then I asked her why, and then… I couldn't say anything at all,” she whispers roughly.

And they are silent.

And it is heavy, but it grows heavier still as she sets the sphere down at the bottom of the trail that leads to Raven’s Roost.

“Walk up with me?” he asks her, and she tips her head with a weak smile.

“Make it worth my while, Magnus,” she says, but she fishes her staff from the orb anyway.

“Maybe it’s not worth it, but I can make you some tea up in the apartment. And don’t give me shit about stereotyping fifty-something year old women, I know you fucking love tea.”

She shakes her head at him, and his chest aches. It’s that endlessly fond smile and the slow close of her eyes as she shakes her head—he remembers trying to piece out why she loved someone as dopey as he was, never figuring out an answer, and just asking her outright, which earned him more of her soft exasperation. Julia, too, used to do the same sort of thing—she would roll her eyes at him and grin and there was this specific tone of voice she would use and…

He starts up the trail, Lucretia beside him.

“Thank you,” he says as they make their way up. “For this. I couldn’t do it on my own.”

“I think you could have,” she murmurs. “I think given enough time, that you could have done it on your own.”

He supposes she’s right, in a way. It isn’t as if he’s been forgotten by the people who remained of Raven’s Roost—that much was made apparent when they started the restoration. And after the Day of Story and Song, the entire continent knows him—it would be easy enough to rouse people to help him. It’s strange thinking that way, but he knows he has it in him between the revolution and his century.

But he couldn't. He needed _their_ help, specifically.

There’s something symbolic in the Bureau aiding him, in his family coming out to help build his home up out of the ruins. There’s meaning to it, there’s love. He could build all the houses in the world, clean up cities upon cities with his own two hands and his own love, but it would never make anything as strong and as meaningful as what they have done here, together.

He needed their support, and they gave it. And it proved that eventually, they could come together again.

Lucretia stops at the top of the ridge. “Actually, Magnus, I think I’ll rain check on the tea,” she says gently. “I’ll leave you here.”  

“A rain check, right?” he urges, “Not a bail?”

“I don’t think you’d let me,” she says carefully, lifting one eyebrow up at him.

“I’d like to see you,” he confirms. “One hundred percent, definitely, I’m not just trying to be nice, Lucretia.”

She doesn’t answer; she just shakes her head slowly at him. It’s not fond this time—it’s sad. She’s sad, and he can’t bear it.

He hugs her tightly, concern churning in the pit of his gut. He thinks about the meanings in her silences, in the quiet pauses she takes to think, the chain around her neck, the lines on her face, her relationship and marriage, and the words she’s not speaking. About the memories of her spending sleepless nights alone, of the creeping remembrance of the days she would only be the vaguest outline of herself, fingers wandering over the edges of the walls as her eyes would slip past everyone. About leaving her alone, alone on that moon of hers.

How cruel have they been to her, without thinking, these past few weeks?

How badly has _he_ treated her, without knowing, since he’s gotten his memories back?

“You told me to be kind,” he says softly, cupping her cheeks in his hands. “When you dropped me off. Because I was a kind person.”

“You are, I don’t understand,” she says, brows knitting together.

He pushes his thumb between her eyebrows, smoothing out the lines there. “I don’t… it’s weird. I didn’t remember, I couldn’t… there was the vaguest idea of me in my head and that… thank you. When it was hard, I held onto that, even though I didn’t know who told me, I didn’t know your name or your face or anything at all, just that… someone once told me I was a kind person. And then, Julia, she said it too—she said it and she told me that being kind wasn’t being weak. You’re not weak either, Lucretia. Let’s both be… the people we think each other are. I’ll be kind, and you… you, you be good. Because you _are_ good, you're good, you always have been. Nothing can change that, remember that for me.”

She closes her eyes and presses her hand to his over her cheek. “I’m doing what I can,” she says softly.

It’s not an answer, not really, and it bothers him. But he doesn’t mention it.

But he makes sure to call her once he moves from the apartment to his cabin where the Hammer and Tongs used to be.


	5. House and Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a sappy sappy person. [Have a playlist.](https://open.spotify.com/user/bluecoloreddreams/playlist/1dskVjtv3UvlJKNfwXcGLS)

It takes a few months, but with the help given to him by the people of Raven’s Roost, and the Bureau members that stayed behind, he manages to build his house in the old Craftsman Corridor, a modest log and stone cabin with a loft for a bedroom or guest space that he can convert to a full second floor if he wants. He makes sure the backyard is large and fenced; he’s nearly got Avery’s stray to sit and stay and there’s a litter of deerhounds she’s training up that he has an eye on.

He spends the first night in his new home feeling odd. He’s happy with the work he’s done on it; all his things are moved in. He hasn’t forgotten anything but he feels almost tangential. It’s a feeling that dips its toes a little too close to the emptiness he felt when Julia died.

No, he feels empty. The apartment he’d been staying out had been in the main hub of town, where the old buildings had been abandoned. The building was full of people, and with his window open, he could hear the sleepy hum of the town all night. The shift change of the builders, the gurgle of the fountain in the main square, the bakery next door.

Here, it is quiet. He’s the only one who’s made the move all the way out here. No one else has been brave enough to face the ghosts in the town, and he thinks that maybe he was a bit foolish to do so himself.

He’s restless and lonely, and it’s not a good combination. It’s the sort of combination that leads to more thoughts than he really wants to have.

He shrugs a coat back on and jogs to the center of town and spends the rest of the night in a tavern, not exactly drinking the  night away, but talking to the folks at each table. After a questionably decent amount of time past sunrise, he starts to call people. By noon, he feels a bit washed out. 

He sits at the fountain, spray cold on his back in the cooling air, feeling more alone than ever as his stone connects and rings.

“ _Magnus? Is everything okay?”_

“I hope I’m not bugging you,” Magnus says, “I know you’re busy.”

“ _No, it’s okay.”_

Lucretia’s voice is tinny and distant on the stone, and there’s muffled talking in the background.

“Um. I finished my house! Well! Cabin.”

_“Oh, that’s wonderful, Magnus!”_

“Yeah, and uh, I- I wanted to do a little housewarming dinner, um… With everyone, you know?”

 _“That sounds lovely, but, Magnus, oh… I don’t know if I should,”_ she murmurs. _“I think Taako was only being nice because of how many people there were and I would hate it if our… um. If we ruined something nice.”_

“Well, um… I’ve… I’ve called everyone else, and um…” he lets his voice trail off, suddenly feeling guilty for the impulsivity of this plan. “No one was available.”

“ _Oh_.”

“I mean, maybe Merle, but he didn’t pick up, and his voicemail spell was full. So, um. No for him. Lup and Barry are doing spooky lich training and can’t be back for like a week or two and Taako said he has a meeting with a sponsor for his _brand_. And you’re probably really busy, right?”

There’s a pause. _“No. I’m not busy,”_ Lucretia says and Magnus _knows_ it’s a lie, because he hears someone protest in the background. “ _I’m in Neverwinter, and how about this—I can give Lord Sterling a letter for when he visits Merle, to tell him to pick up his damn stone. No point in having it if it's off. And um. I’ll come, if you still want to have a dinner?”_

“Oh, um… yeah, please? Tonight? If you can? If you’d like to! It’s a good house, I built it.”

Lucretia laughs and he knows somehow that she’s shaking her head. “ _I’ll bring along some food—and um. Tea, I can bring tea, to make up for the time I didn’t stay.”_

“Thank you, Lucretia,” he murmurs. He’s surprised that his voice is hoarse—he hadn’t realized just how desperately lonely he was.

 _“Oh, no, it’s no trouble. I was… I’d like to come visit, so this is a good… I’ll see you tonight,”_ she promises.

“Tonight,” he promises, and the line goes dead.

Relief flows through him so suddenly that he sags, his head between his knees. He’d forgotten what it was like to be alone.  For so long he’d slept in inns and taverns and then, in the Bureau, in dorms and in suites—and before even that, the seven of them, together, out on the deck some nights, blankets and pillows spread out like a nest; Lucretia nestled in his arms; Fisher out of his tank, bobbing and glowing in the dark of his room playing with scraps and ducks; hearing them in the hallway. The lack of white noise in his new home feels like he does in his darkest moments—empty, suffocating, heavy.

He breathes in deep, fingers laced behind his neck. It’ll get better, he’s sure, as more people move out from the packed city square, more willing to test the magically restructured columns and bridges. As he becomes more accustomed to the lack of white noise.

He sighs, watching the people flow past him. It’s late autumn, or what passes for it up at Raven’s Roost. The newly planted trees and freshly trimmed bushes have dropped all but some of their leaves. The crew in charge of cleaning up corners and streets have made colorful arrangements of flowers and ornamental cabbages and various harvest festival goods, and people are starting to bundle up. It gets real cold at night, giving the daytime the sort of briskness that precedes the first chills of winter. 

Julia loved this time of year; she’d wait for the season to change, wanting to track it to the exact day. She swore she could smell it when the air turned from autumnal to wintry.

He closes his eyes and stands, dusting off the back of his coat the best he can and heading towards the market street—his fridge is empty, but tonight, at least, his home will not be. And neither will the plates in their boxes be empty, or his table. 

One of the things that surprised him about his returned memories was that he actually knew how to cook. Not that he couldn’t before—he could make eggs and sandwiches, pretty tame things to keep himself fed. And it isn’t like Fisher and Junior returned any extreme cooking prowess back to him, but one doesn’t spend a hundred years in Taako and Lup’s company and _not_ pick up a few things. (Or, rather, everyone except Lucretia. The memory of the cycle she permanently melted a pot to the back eye of the stove is not lost to him.)

He’s no Taako, but he can at least make a good pasta now:  He makes his way home with cider and wine  and the ingredients for alfredo, along with staples for his fridge. Maybe if there’s food, it’ll be easier to settle into his home.

His cabin is as he left it: he’s proud of it, loves it, but it is quiet and it is empty. He thinks he shouldn’t have moved in before he got a puppy to keep him company—or without a radio at least.

He grits his teeth and gets to work prepping for dinner. He unearths the gifted set of plates and cups and cutlery, the pans he’d bought a few weeks ago. He bathes and changes and paces his living area, trying hard not to look at the picture of Julia on the mantle—it would be too easy to look and waste the afternoon away staring.

It seems like the few hours’ wait is forever; he’s been idly whittling away at a duck feeling distracted and fidgety, his fingers stained red from sloppy knife work in his agitation. Finally, there’s a knock at the door.

As he nears it, he hears what sounds like the murmuring of a small crowd, and Lucretia hushing people. 

He opens the door and is met with a group rather than just one person. Lucretia holds a canvas bag in one hand, and a bottle of wine in the other. Behind her, Angus peeks his head out and grins.

“Hello, sir! Miss Lucretia said you finished your house!”

She grins sheepishly. “So, you know how I said I wasn’t busy? I was. I had to bring work with me,” she says. “And Angus. I was visiting him for lunch.”

“That’s a lie,” Carey cuts in; “She invited us. Angus invited himself.”

“Hey!”

“Everyone brought some food,” Lucretia continues, wrinkling her nose in embarrassment. “So uh, don’t worry about us cleaning out your kitchen.”

Magnus gapes at her in dumbstruck awe before he shakes his head. “Wow, um! Come, come in, wow—Lucretia…”

He steps aside—Avi claps him on the shoulder as he passes, Carey stops to do their handshake before she follows Avi in, whistling in appreciation. Killian pats Lucretia’s shoulder and scoops Angus up onto her shoulders.

“C’mon kid, leave the adults alone for a sec.”

Lucretia groans. “Killian, really?”

Magnus steps forward and tugs her into a tight hug. “Thank you, I—I didn’t expect; thank you.”

Lucretia awkwardly shifts her arms so she can pat his chest with the back of her hand. “Oh, no, it’s no problem. I… it’s hard being alone,” she says softly. “So, I… Carey overheard and I asked her if she and Killian would like to come, and Avi does transport and you two are friends, so of course he wanted to come; Angus has been so busy with school that I thought it would be nice, and… I owe you so much, Magnus. This is nothing.”

Magnus shakes his head and cups her cheeks between his palms. “It’s _everything_.”

From the cabin, they hear Avi call out “ _Somebody tell Fangbattle that brandy goes with everything!”_

Lucretia laughs, “And also it sounds like we’re spending the night since Avi is breaking out the booze already.”

“That’s perfect,” he murmurs, grinning at her as he holds out his hand for her bag.

She gives it to him and they step inside, and finally, his house feels like a home.

Dinner goes swimmingly— there’s not nearly enough pasta, but Lucretia’s brought food and there’s enough booze to go around the adults, and Angus drinks juice and chatters about school. 

Midway through their impromptu potluck, there’s another knock on the door.

Magnus stands from his place on the floor, and opens the door to find Taako, with food levitating around him.

“I finished early m’dude and I brought leftovers,” he says, then scowls, looking around Magnus’ shoulder. “You started the party without me! Like woah! Is the whole B-oh-B gang here or... Oh. They are.”

There’s a tense moment as Taako’s eyes meet Lucretia, his scowl deepening.

“Well, there wasn’t going to be one,” Magnus says pointedly. “But Lucretia brought everyone with her.”

Taako snorts and Magnus grits his teeth, unsure of what to do.

“At least she brought the kid,” he mutters, then sighs. “Well! None of this is for _you_ ,” he says, jabbing a finger over Magnus’ shoulder towards Lucretia. “It’s got squash and Maggie’s fridge is probably barren.”

Lucretia shrugs and goes back to her game of Uno with the others, holding her two cards triumphantly. He flicks his fingers and turns Carey’s red nine for Lucretia to a _Draw All_ card. “Shit!”

Magnus shakes his head and grins as Taako gives a delighted smirk at the sight of Lucretia trying to fit the whole deck into what was once a soon-to-be-winning hand.

Cheating aside, Taako and Lucretia manage to get along as well as too people ignoring each other on opposite sides of the room can; Magnus knows that they’re behaving just for him (and Angus), but it means a lot.

They all make their way out into the cold air of the night to sleep—Taako, Lucretia, and Angus conjure up tents and squashy pillows and a fire that won’t spread or even burn the grass beneath it. Angus chatters delightedly about the stars above until his hand finally goes slack and he falls asleep, exhausted.

Lucretia and Magnus sit, side by side on his deck, sipping hot cider from chipped mugs watching everyone else doze off. 

“The view is lovely,” she murmurs. “It’s peaceful.”

“It’s quiet,” Magnus murmurs.

“You don’t like it,” Lucretia murmurs. It isn’t a question.

“It’s… not what I’m used to,” he says slowly.

She nods and takes a sip of her cider, cupping the mug between her hands. “You sounded… pretty rough earlier.”

“I’ll get used to it,” he repeats. “It just… it takes a bit. It took me a long time to get used to not having Julia in bed with me. I’m sure you know the feeling. It'll settle eventually.”

The noise Lucretia makes is soft. He looks over and she turns her head away, but not quickly enough to hide the pained expression on her face.

“Did you ever get used to being alone after?” he asks.

“Not really. Neither time,” she says softly. “But that’s neither here nor there. I can spell myself to sleep. I’m sure if you have problems, there’s a cleric who will make you up something. No shame in asking.”

“We should… join the nest,” Magnus says uncomfortably.

Lucretia shakes her head. “I’m not tired. You go on ahead, it looks comfy.”

He thinks of all the late nights he's stumbled across her, of all the strange hours he's seen her office light on, or saw her while he was jogging. Of the dark circles under her eyes and her reluctance to even settle in for the night. “You don’t sleep a lot anymore, do you?” he asks.

She takes another drink off of her mug and sighs into its steamy surface. It billows up around her face and curls into the night air. “Not without magic or potions. If I don’t bring them with me, then no. I don’t sleep. I can’t. If I manage to doze off… I can’t stay asleep.”

“You still have nightmares?”

She purses her lips and her hands tremble as she grips her mug. “Not nightmares. Terrors. I sleepwalk and scream and… it’s unpleasant for everyone involved.”

“Boo hoo,” Taako cuts in from across the deck, where he’s curled up with a book and a fuzzy blanket in a hammock. The summoned light he’s been reading by bobs at his shoulder and lights his face from below, his face a curled snarl of anger. “Join the fucking club, Lucretia. I swear to god, stop painting yourself as a fucking martyr to win pity points with Magnus. This isn’t a fucking bingo game, where your ‘ _Oh I don’t sleep_ ’ and ‘ _My wife’s dead too_!’ are checked off and you win some bullshit prize of family—that you _destroyed_ , thank you, you do not get to get that back. He’s not going to sleep with you again, or pick your lonely ass up off of the ground because you cry a little. You dropping everything and bringing a whole mess of people because he called isn’t going to make your bed any less cold or easier to sleep in at night. Stop bribing and guilt tripping him into forgiveness because it’s fucking nasty.”

Lucretia shakes her head as she gapes, “I—excuse me?”

“Taako, how about you shut up?” Magnus snaps.

“How about no?” Taako shoots back. “She’s doing her same old shit, like—last time, she acted all pitiful and broken and oh how she was so alone that whole year, and we all fell for it; you went all moon-eyed over her and now she’s pulling that same trick on you—”

“We were having a conversation,” Lucretia cuts in. “I’m sorry that you felt like I was trying to pull a con on Magnus, but I’m not _you_.”

She sets her mug aside and stands, walking off into the cabin.

Magnus watches her go and turns to Taako and sighs. “Did it _ever_ occur to you that she was trying to reassure me?”

“By what? Being morose? She’s trying to buy your forgiveness, and you shouldn’t be so cheap to fall for it.”

“She was trying to tell me that what I go through is okay, and probably you too—she knows you have night terrors too, you announced it in her _office,_ for fuck’s sake. She knew you were listening, otherwise she wouldn’t have said it.”

“Since when are _you_ mister smart guy?”

“Since I realized that I hurt a lot of people by talking without thinking,” Magnus snaps back. “Since I remembered that I had a family that I loved and that I wanted to protect. You need to let go, Taako. Life’s shorter than you think it is.”

With that, he stands and follows Lucretia inside, Taako snorting behind him. He finds her in the living area, papers already spread out in front of her.

“Luce, I’m sorry, I didn’t know he was going to go after you like that.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Lucretia murmurs, riffling through a ream of paper. “You don’t control him, and… in a way, he is right. I… I feel like I need to earn your forgiveness, Magnus. What I did today wasn’t done because I thought it would make you like me, but because I felt bad. Everyone else had been busy, and you called me… I might be the last choice, Magnus, but I can make it count. That’s what I thought. I wanted to make you happy, not just because you being happy is… you deserve that,” she says emphatically, spreading out a set of blueprints in front of her, then two sets of papers to either side of her knees.

“You deserve it,” she repeats again. “But I also… I also wanted you to—I wanted you to be happy because it makes _me_ happy when you are. When _all_ of you are. All I ever wanted was this to be a world that you could be safe and happy in and… I feel like I didn’t fuck up as badly as I did when you’re pleased. It feels like it was worth it, like I was right and justified, and… it’s so sickeningly selfish.”

 He sits down on the sofa hands clasped between his knees. “You don’t keep having to look for reasons to paint yourself as a bad person,” he says slowly. “I think… Like.”

He sighs heavily and shrugs. “The things we do, sometimes, are selfish. Because we’re people. But, like… if we do good because it makes _us_ feel good, it’s still. It’s still out there. We still did good things. I don’t believe that shit about intent souring the deed—I can’t. I fought that revolution, I led it, and I told everyone it was because I can’t stand bullies. And that’s _true_ , I can’t and we were fighting against bullies—it made me feel bad to know they were out there. But more than that, Lucretia, more than anything, I fought it because those people were threatening my home, my family. My life at the Hammer and Tongs, with Steven and Julia—the government threatened it directly. My happiness was at stake and I fought solely because I wanted that happiness for myself. At the end of the day, so many times, I just thought, ‘Fuck everything else, as long as I have Julia’. And if that’s… not selfish, I don’t know what else is.”

Lucretia’s hand shake over her papers, and she sets them in her lap, palms up and folded together. “I can’t deny that I was selfish, Magnus.”

“That’s not what I’m saying, Lucretia. What I’m saying is that… sometimes, it’s okay. Like, not the—not the stuff with Fisher, that’s, yeah, it turned out okay, but it wasn’t… It wasn’t right. But, like, if you want to help a little old lady across the street because it makes you feel nice? Sure, fuck it. I do it. Don’t beat yourself up over the small things, and don’t do it over the big ones, just… recognize what you did and move along.”

Lucretia’s mouth trembles and she shakes her head. “Oh, Magnus, when did you get so wise?”

He laughs and shakes his head. “I didn’t, not really. I’m just repeating what Julia told me. I was real beat up over only fighting because it interfered with me and her and… Well, back then, it made me feel better.”  

“I’m glad you listened to her,” Lucretia says softly. They don’t address the elephant in the room that is the bombing of Raven’s Roost, and for that, she’s glad. She’s too complicit in the destruction to really speak candidly, and she’s tired. She’s exhausted.

She drops her head into her hands. “I’m sorry I snapped at Taako.”

“What? Hell no! Fire back, Lucy!”

She laughs once and shakes her head. “I can’t keep up with him anymore, Magnus. Once I’d just prank him, but…”

Magnus slides from the couch and puts a hand on her shoulder. “C’mon Luce, let’s find you a place in the nest out there, you look beat.”

“I should work on these floor plans for the new library,” she murmurs.

He drops his hands between her shoulders, feeling vertebrae and her scapulas beneath the slow circle of his hand, fine and thin like a bird. He could pick her up one-handed if he wanted—she’s so small. She’s always been small, but it seems like she could collapse under her own weight like a dying star.

“You should try to sleep,” he says firmly. “And eat seconds during breakfast. I bet you money Taako’s going to make waffles and burn some just for you.”

“…Ew.”

“I _like_ burned waffles. And squash, I saw you making that face earlier, stop judging my food,” Magnus mutters, wounded.

She laughs, shaking her head at him. “Oh, oh alright. I hope I don’t wake anyone.”

“If you do, it’ll be fine. Angus will probably cuddle right on up to you,” Magnus promises. He stands and offers his hand out to her. “Come on, you came to spend time with me to make sure I wasn’t lonely. I’m not going to let you hole yourself up in here with work.”

Lucretia smiles softly, reaching up to take his hand. “I suppose so.”

He beams, feeling warmth in the pit of his gut. “There we go,” he murmurs gently. “That’s my girl.”


	6. Bookended

She wakes up, face chilled, wedged underneath several bodies. At first, she’s not sure what woke her—it wasn’t a nightmare, her heart isn’t racing. She’s just disoriented and so very warm from the neck down. Her back aches a bit, and her hips are uncomfortably situated, half turned atop someone’s leg.

Her nose is stuffy, just a bit, and she squints up. There’s a blurry figure above her, and she squints, her vision resolving just enough to make out a familiar silhouette. The foot in her stomach nudges her again, and oh, that’s why she’s awake.

“Get up. This is making me sick to look at.”

“Then don’t,” she whispers. She shifts slowly to nestle back into the pile of bodies around her—Magnus against her back, with Carey’s arm draped haphazardly over his face, and she distantly remembers falling asleep with her claws delicately combing through her hair, Killian snickering sleepily about how her boss was being groomed by her fiancé, and Angus against her chest, Avi snoring loudly on the other side of him.

True enough, she’d fallen asleep and woken up whimpering, only to be soothed back into slumber by everyone curling tightly around her—Magnus’ arm around her waist and Angus pressing his face to her neck and telling her she was safe as she could be with them. She’s quite loathe to leave the nest of bodies and comfort, but Taako’s foot nudges her again and she sighs.

“Fine,” she says softly. She reaches across Killian’s stomach for her glasses, blinking in the early dawn’s light. The air is frigid, and outside their spelled circle, frost glazes the grass and the baby pines Magnus planted outside of his fence.

Taako turns and walks away, back up into the cabin.

It takes a moment to extract herself, but the pile of bodies simply collapses inwards, Magnus rolling onto his back to fill the spot she left behind. He snores once, loud enough to rival Avi, and she can’t help but giggle. Once, during a similar pile on the Starblaster, he’d woken everyone but himself with one single snore, and in her ire, Lup had magicked him off the side of the deck.

She picks up a spare blanket and wraps it over her shoulders, shuffling up the deck and into the kitchen. It smells like heaven—hot coffee and cinnamon and bacon. Taako’s back is to her as he cooks, muttering under his breath.

She stands in the door, uncertain as why she’s been summoned. Or why she even came. She must be a masochist, she supposes, unwilling to forgo any of the pain that comes with trying to interact with people who hate her.  But Taako is part of her heart, and she can’t just ignore him.

“Close that fucking door, it’s freezing out there.”

She steps deeper into the kitchen, closing the door behind her, barring herself from an easy escape.

He points to the counter, “Chop,” he says. “Even _you_ can’t fuck that up.”

She moves obediently towards the array of fruit and begins to slice apples into delicate slices, hands accustomed to the movements even after a decade of disuse.

“I don’t like you,” Taako announces, cracking eggs into his bowl of batter. “I don’t trust you, I don’t like that you’re still even around, I don’t like your fucking Benevolence bullshit, I don’t like that you didn’t disappear off the face of this earth, out into a cabin in the woods somewhere where I don’t have to look at your stupid _old_ face.”

She sets the knife down slowly, feeling the tremors in her chest begin to spread outwards to her hands. She clenches her fists against the counter, eyes cast down.

“I’m sorry I didn’t do the respectable thing and cop it,” she whispers. “That’s what I wanted, but if I recall correctly, even you stayed behind to fight with me. You offered up that third choice.”

“What you wanted,” Taako says slowly, sounding the words out like they’re something novel. He begins to beat in the eggs. “So you wanted to die. Funny.”

“Not really,” she whispers.

“It’s a riot, Lucy,” he sneers, dipping his finger into the batter. He tastes it, wrinkles his nose, then splashes more vanilla into it. “One more on your bingo card.”

She falls silent, looking down at her half-cut apple. “There’s nothing I can say to you that will sound sincere, is there?”

“Not exactly. I believe you think I’m a callous, murderous conman,” he says lightly. He snaps his fingers and Magnus’ stove flares to life. “And you’re right. But that’s not all I am—hell, if you asked me a year ago, it would be, because _you took everything else_.”

There’s nothing she can say, so she doesn’t say anything at all. She hears the sizzling of oil in a pan and the scent of butter permeates the room; she can’t look up, even though she’s always loved to watch Taako and Lup cook.

“You took it all, Lucy, and I’m not a forgiving person. I’ve been through rough shit before, but I was never alone. But these past ten years—they were hell for me. And I thought, a little, maybe they were hell for you too, only to find you went off to play house with the Millers for—how long did you pretend you had a new family? How long did you stop looking for Lup, for us, for the Relics, just to play pretend?”

“Longer than I should have, Taako,” she says softly.

“Hmph.” He begins to spoon batter into the pan. “Longer than you should have. I figure, though, we’re square if Doc Miller died because of the Stone. We didn’t fail to save her, you know. She left. She could have kept living—maybe if you’d kept your Junior shenanigans under control, she wouldn’t have lost her mind at what the Hunger showed her in those mirrors.”

“I know,” Lucretia murmurs.

“And she encouraged us to keep Lucas safe from you.”

“I know.”

“Your family was scared of you.”

“ _I_ _know_.”

“You’re two for two here, Lucy. Two families you destroyed. So how about you stop trying to play at families? I don’t fucking like you, but I like them,” he hisses through his teeth. “I like them; they were the first family I had here, even though that was a lie, so keep your home wrecking mitts off of them.”

Lucretia swallows hard, turning towards Taako. “I’m not trying to steal your family,” she mumbles. “I’m not.”

Taako grits his teeth and twitches his wrist, expertly flipping the pancakes with the most minute gesture. “They might have fallen for all of it, forgiven you and swallowed the platitudes but I can’t. I fucking can’t. I would have rather you made me think Lup was dead—you played god with my life, with all of our lives, and you had the power to just suggest that she died, and it would have been better than what you gave me. And Lucy, if you played god then, when else did you do it? What did you do to them, to make sure you had them for your little Bureau?”

Lucretia steps back, hands shaking against her stomach. Taako’s gaze pierces her, pins her to place. She closes her eyes and shakes her head, but she can’t shake the image of plans spread out before her, Maureen leaning over a drafting board, Bain in their kitchen. The ruins of Raven’s Roost.

“I know you came to my shows—Magnus knows you came to see him. Merle’s pretty sure his kids saw you too. And you didn’t do a damn thing to prevent what happened to us. Barry says you hunted him—”

“I was checking up—”

“And then you set up your base to tear him to bits and pieces. You were going to kill him twice. What did you do to Killian? To Carey? To Avi, Johann, Lucas, Maureen Miller, that dick Boyland, Magic _fuckin’_ Brian—how did you find these people? What did you do to make them loyal to you? What did you do to them to get to us?”

“You can’t believe I made friends on my own? That I found them on my own, and gave them a choice?”

“You? No,” Taako sneers. He slides the pancakes off of the pan and starts another batch. “It took you fifty fuckin’ years to warm up to any of us, and then you still ripped us apart because we didn’t listen to you, _Madame_. I don’t think you’re capable of really caring.”

“If you’re capable, then I am,” Lucretia says softly. “I have always cared—and so have you.”

He slams the pan onto the eye of the stove. “Don’t you fucking dare say _shit_ about me, and what _I’m_ capable of. You—you made me think—I thought no one would have me,” he whispers. “That I was an idiot and I was forgettable and that no one cared, because no one had before.”

“So you want me to feel like that? That no one will have _me_? Taako,” she laughs, feeling brittle. “Maureen Miller threw her wedding ring in the trash. She accused me of all you have, and more and then made me watch as she took everything I had placed my hopes in and threw it away. I knew then, for absolute certain, that I was worse than dirt. Maybe you think I’m trying to earn your pity, trying to twist you into forgiving me, but you’re telling me nothing new. You’re preaching to the choir, Taako. I don’t know why they’re forgiving me, I don’t know why they didn’t leave the second I offered them the money and freedom. I’ve known for over a year now that all that waited for me is this,” she says, gesturing between them. “It was either this or we go on like nothing happened—and obviously, that isn’t possible.”

Taako huffs and flips his pancakes with a little less flair than before. “There’s never two options,” he finally mutters.

“Yes,” she agrees.

“How about this, then,” he says, pointing his spatula at her again. “You stop trying to give advice that applies to me too, like what you did last night. You ignore me, and I ignore you—”

“Taako, that’s incredibly hard considering you’ve started each incident,” Lucretia murmurs.

“Because your face fucking annoys me! Shut up. It just… Mango was angry, and Ango fuckin’ loves you for some dumbass reason, and I don’t…”

“They won’t desert you because you’re angry with me,” she says gently.

He laughs once, his voice scratchy as he shakes his head. “What makes you so sure, Lucretia? Is it the same thing that makes you so sure you’re their friend? Because that’s not reassuring at all.”

“…noted,” she whispers.

“We keep this to ourselves,” he says. “I don’t forgive you, you’re not invited to my wedding, you’re not invited anywhere near me. But I’ll _let_ you, because I am generous and a wonderful person.”

“You’re getting married?”

“No, you dipshit,” he snaps. “What I’m saying is, you are not worth my effort. You _are_ , in fact, less than dirt. But for some unfathomable reason, you’re worth theirs, so I’ll let _them_ handle you. Also I’m taking Angus back to school because he loves me more than you.”

“Magnus already called dibs.”

“Dammit, woman!”

Despite herself, Lucretia laughs, and then promptly dissolves into tears. She leans her back against the counter, covering her face with her palms. She slides down, hiccupping into her hands. “Thank you,” she finally manages.

Taako makes a noise of discomfort. “That sounds like existing,” he says mildly.

“I know,” she murmurs. “I know, but… thank you—”

“Ew, stop blubbering. You’re throwing off the energy here, it’s gonna make the pancakes taste like shit. And go back to chopping those apples.”

If Magnus is confused when he stumbles in to find Lucretia working at his table while Taako stirs down his apple compote for the pancakes, he doesn’t say anything. He just plops down beside Lucretia and nudges her with his foot, winking at her as she gives him a faint smile.

Her pancakes aren’t even burnt.


	7. Visitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This and the last were written together, but it felt better to split them!

Lucretia walks behind Magnus and Angus, hands clasped behind her back as Angus gives Magnus the full tour of the Academy. She’s already had the honor of being shown around, and occasionally Angus will turn back and point out major changes on the campus to her—like where Lucas himself had blown out a wall (“He said he did it intentionally, ma’am, but I think it was an accident”) or where the botany club had planted a rare species of orchid.

He takes them back to the gates after showing them his dorm—his bed is as neatly made as ever, but his desk earns an amused chuckle from Magnus as Angus stammers through an apology about the mess.

“It’s good to see you’re not always spot on, Angus,” Magnus laughs, scruffing his hand through the boy’s hair.

“I think his desk is fine,” Lucretia murmurs.

“…Lucy,” Magnus interjects. “Your desk is probably five-inches deep in half done paperwork.”

“I can find my work just fine, thank you, and I’m sure Angus can too.”

“Thank you, ma’am!”

Magnus holds out his hands and chuckles, laughing even harder at the looks given to him by Lucretia and Angus both. “Alright, alright, obviously there are systems in place I don’t understand.”

Lucretia chuckles, then turns to Angus. “Angus, dear, why don’t you tell him?”

“Oh, ma’am, I don’t want to brag,” Angus mumbles. “I’d hate to get him all excited and nothing happen!”

“I think it’s fine,” Lucretia assures him.

“If you say so,” he murmurs. “Guess what, sir!”

“What? Are you hiding a dog in your closet?”

“No, that’s against dormitory rules, sir, and I like it here a lot—not that I disliked the Bureau at all, ma’am!”

Lucretia shakes her head, “No, I understand. It’s alright, Angus.”

Angus nods and grins up at Magnus, “No, I went to the soccer team try outs last week, and I think I’m gonna be on the team!”

“Hell—heck yeah!” Magnus crows, holding out his hand for a high five. Angus stands on his toes and smacks his hand as hard as he can, grinning ear to ear. “That earns ice-cream, little guy!”

Lucretia grins, watching quietly as Magnus hoists Angus onto his shoulders, leading them out of the dorm onto the quad towards the cafeteria.

From the corner of her eye, she catches sight of Lucas and pauses. “You two, go on, I’ll be a minute—”

Magnus looks over his shoulder, then towards Lucas and pauses. “We can come too, if you want.”

“No, I’d… I’ll be just a moment,” she says, hurrying off towards Lucas. It takes her a moment, and she has to lengthen her stride considerably to catch up to him.

“Lucas,” she calls.

He keeps going until they turn a corner, then stops and sighs before turning to face her. “Lucretia, hello,” he says, shifting his books in his arms to adjust his glasses. “Did you need something?”

Lucretia freezes, then bites down on her lip. “No, I just… I thought I’d stop to say hello since I was here.”

“Well, hello. I’m busy; if you will,” he starts, turning from her. Lucretia reaches out and touches his elbow.

“Lucas, I just wanted to… This place is wonderful, Angus loves it here, and… you’re doing well, right? You’re doing okay?”

“I’d like it if you dropped the act,” Lucas says frostily. “You missed your chance at being a mother. Don’t start now.”

“Lucas, I always cared for you, I know I was a bad stepmother—”

“You were a bad everything,” he corrects. “If you had just _come_ when I begged you to—if you had just listened to me when I said mom wasn’t _right_. If you put us first… We weren’t the family you wanted, Lucretia. You let us know that the second you dropped us for those three idiots. The best thing you’ve done for Angus is to let him come here.”

Lucretia curls her fingers into her palms, tucking her hands up into her sleeves. “He’s doing well here, I guess?”

Lucas laughs, “Well? Better than that. He’s a genius, Lucretia. He could do so much. Let him stay here. And in the future, when you check him out from the dorm, wait until class is over. Just because you saved the world doesn’t mean you get special privileges.”

“I see,” Lucretia murmurs. “I’ll…. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Later,” Lucas says as he turns and walks off.

“Yes,” she says absently, watching him go. She turns and makes her way to the cafeteria, finding Angus and Magnus’ table swarming with students—some are peppering Magnus with questions, others are chatting easily with Angus. She hangs back, watching them fondly.

Angus catches her eye and perks up, causing Magnus to turn as well. They both wave her over; Magnus bumps a kid over to make room on the bench, causing the table to erupt in a loud wave of giggles. She sits gingerly, shaking her head as Magnus offers her a second spoon for the sundae he’s half-mangled.

The afternoon passes with sticky fingers and laughter, and they leave near dinnertime, Angus hugging them both as hard as he can.

“We’ll be back for your games,” Lucretia promises. “I’ll try and round up everyone. I promise.”

“Oh, ma’am, don’t go to too much trouble.”

“Ango!” Magnus scolds. “It’s no trouble, in fact, it’s more trouble if you don’t let her!”

“Is that so?” Angus stammers.

“Yep, do you know how much trouble I’d be in with Carey and Killian and Avi if I didn’t invite them? Goodness, Angus,” she laughs, ruffling his hair. “Be good until then?” she asks.

“I will, I always am!”

She kneels and hugs him again, giving him a kiss on the forehead. “Okay, then we’ll see you then.”

She hates leaving, but Angus has homework and friends and all sorts of things to do without them. They leave the quad in silence.

Magnus clears his throat awkwardly as they walk down the sidewalk. “He loves you,” he says.

“I know,” Lucretia says, amused.

“He’s… a bit like… do you think if you had a kid, he’d be like Angus?”

“A little, sometimes,” Lucretia answers, her throat tight. “But I wouldn’t wish me on any child. I was a bad mother.”

“To Lucas?”

“Yes. And Angus, a bit,” Lucretia muses. “It’s harder than it seems, being a parent. I’m not… I’m not suited to much.”

“Angus loves you,” Magnus repeats. “And I think… that Lucas must too. I mean, he came to you for help when the Stone backfired. He knew what it meant to call you and he did it anyway. He trusted you to help him, and you did.”

“I think you’re being too reductive,” Lucretia murmurs.

“I think I’m being right,” Magnus counters.

They walk in silence for another block before Lucretia speaks up. “What about you? Angus loves you, too. And Taako, and Merle. So, would your kid be like Angus?”

“If he was ours,” Magnus says so easily that it knocks the breath out of her. “Me and Julia? Nah. He’s too quiet. Julia was loud. And I’m, well, me.”

“So Mookie,” she offers, and Magnus laughs loudly enough that she’s proud of her composure.

“Yeah, that kid—he’s a hoot. Merle through and through.”

Magnus looks up at the sky, hands in his pockets as he sighs. “We never did get around to kids, me and Jules. We wanted ‘em but, it just… wasn’t meant to be. I wanted ‘em back then, too, now that I remember.”

“Yeah, you… you came up half dead from hiding your Relic talking about wanting kids,” Lucretia says faintly. “Gave me a heart attack. I’d… I’d hoped I’d get to see your kids, Magnus.”

“You and Doc Miller ever talk about that?”

“…Maureen had Lucas,” she says softly. “Well, I did too. And he was a handful. We thought about adopting, the two of us and Lucas, but… I begged her to wait. I knew the Hunger would come, one day, because of what I was going to do and that… I couldn’t tell her that I thought there was a chance I would die, but… I asked her to wait, and so… It’s for the best, in my case. For that, and for you and me.”

Magnus looks at her and she turns her gaze away.

“I want to have family dinners,” Magnus says after a moment. “All of us—or as many of us who can get together. At my place, in Neverwinter, the base. I want to see you more often, Lucretia. And Angus, and Merle and Taako. Would you come?”

Lucretia smiles softly. “Of course I would,” she says softly. “As long as you’ll have me around.”

“Good. Hopefully by then, you’ll be able to meet my new dog,” Magnus declares. “I’ll be getting one soon!”

“Just one?” she teases.

“Maybe one is just a made up concept,” he says, and she grins.

He holds out his hand, and she takes it without much thought, laughing as he swings their hands together as they walk towards her Neverwinter apartment for dinner.


	8. Interim

They meet for lunch, for dinners. On the moon base, in Neverwinter. In Refuge, Rockport, Goldcliff. Lucretia is always traveling, somewhere new each time they make plans.  


She seems happy enough. She settles down across from him with documents describing what each place needs from the Bureau. Her handwriting is neat, small, and precise as she points out each outline and blueprint. Some of it is beyond him, but he lets her work through the plans by reading them to him. She considers each piece of advice he gives her, and she asks the opinion of his puppy, Johann the Dog, who takes his job too seriously and solemnly sits at attention as they chat.  


They clear their tables of her work, then fill them up to eat, and then do not return to work. She tells him stories of townsfolk, of civil servants, of new recruits. Of places she’d never seen or heard of, yet were still touched by their Relics, by the Hunger.  


She animates in ways he hasn’t seen in years, in ways he only half-remembers, like he’s dreamt that version of Lucretia, only for her to come to life before him. She rolls her eyes and waves a hand with each story, body language delightfully punctuating each tale. She makes him laugh like this, reduces him to snorts and snickers and full-body laughter.  


He rewards her of stories of his own.  


The dogs he’s adopted, the dogs he’s fostered out, the first round of students, human and canine, he’s trained with the help of Avery's shelter. How Johann has learned to ‘harmonize’. The little dog houses he crafts.  


They get shooed from restaurants and take to the streets, walking side by side.  


She talks and he talks; their elbows jostle and there are times where she forgets and she turns to grin at him like she used to, and it knocks the breath out of him.

And always, always, the smile slides off of her face so quickly that it hurts to watch. He doesn’t know what to do to keep her smiling like that, and it hurts.  


They always part after that, because the silence becomes painful, because Lucretia closes back up after that, her shoulders straightening as she clasps her hands at her stomach, spine upright as she looks away.  


He finds himself swimming in his old memories—the urge to reach out and tuck a stray curl away from her face. To pull her lip from her teeth as she worries it. To hook elbows with her, to draw her close in a crowded street. She bleeds away from the Director the more time he spends with her—she’s less straight-backed fierceness and more of the soft-smiles and busy hands that he remembers.  


But he sees the weariness in the edges of her smiles, the hesitance in her hands. None of their time here on this plane has been kind to them; sometimes, he catches himself thinking that maybe she had it the easiest of them all, but he sees the way she’ll curl her hand back and press it to her chest when they walk, or how she stares off in silence at times when people recognize them. The way she shrinks back into herself, back into the role she’d played for years—the stoic and dry Director—just like she would sink back into being the silent recorder on the Starblaster when it got too much for her.  


To think that he wouldn’t recognize her tells for what they were a few months before! Now that he knows, now that he recognizes the signs of her struggling, he wants to do something. To pull her close and smooth his thumbs over her cheeks.  


He wants to reach out to her like he had so many times before in the past few months, but the casual ease he'd had before is gone, replaced with a familiar, bittersweet nervousness. 

There’s strangeness to the familiarity the urges have—layered on his memories of the time they spent together on the backend of forever, are his memories of Julia. He had been so nervous and shy around her that he's still embarrassed about it. The nostalgia of it is so much that it leaves him dry-mouthed and weak, a sort of trepidation he'd only ever experienced with Julia; he and Lucretia had felt so natural that they were together before he could get nervous. But now... Now things are different and he isn't sure he can be the one to make her smile anymore. But he wants to; he wants to, so badly.  


It scares him, just a little. But he never fails to make plans or to hug her as tightly as he can when they part ways. 


	9. Retreating

As the months speed by, the Bureau picks up more and more and more. It becomes a little more difficult to get a hold of Lucretia; their frequent lunch and dinner outings dwindle to once a week. 

Magnus is worried about Lucretia. He’s _been_ worried about her, of course, but it’s starting to go from a passive worry to something a bit more pressing.

Even though she seems like she’s fine—her library is nearly complete, the Bureau is growing and expanding its efforts, and she’s picked up her painting again—he sees how she picks at her food, sees how the circles under her eyes have gotten darker. Her hands shake a bit every now and then, and Magnus doesn’t think it has anything at all to do with age. She seems a bit like she's one wrong move away from unraveling, and Magnus isn't sure why.

She still laughs each time he introduces him to a new dog, she still cracks jokes when they have a moment in private. She shows up, without fail, to every soccer match to cheer for Angus even when she has to cancel their other outings because of her work.

But she disappears for days at a time, and not even Carey and Killian know where she is. They're not even sure if it’s for the Bureau, though they assume it is. He wants to press them for more details, but as the days grow warmer, they become more and more caught up in wedding planning. 

He still remembers, complete with the crushed feeling in his chest, stepping into his kitchen for more cider on Candlenights, to find her silently weeping as she washed dishes, away from the bustle of the party. He remembers the shame he felt for days after from backing out of the room before she noticed.

Is she eating? Is she sleeping? Is she safe? They're so rarely alone these days that he can't manage to talk to her in a space she feels comfortable in enough to tell him. 

The kicker is the dogs. 

He’d already been concerned, because she’d been unusually quiet when she brought Angus earlier that afternoon. She'd spent the short hours they had alone absently tapping her pen against her papers. 

He sent Angus out with Mavis and Mookie once Taako arrived for dinner, obviously in a mood; preventing a blow up seems easier than damage control, and Merle encourages his kids out the door after exchanging a significant look with Magnus.

Dinner is tense, and Lucretia remains stoic at her side of the table, pushing her food around slowly. She freezes and looks up as conversation drifts from dogs and teen retreats to Taako's show, and Magnus wants to  reach across the table for her hand. He doesn't know why she's struggling, but he recognizes it, and he wishes he could help her.  

Taako answers Merle's queries about Ren and his show starting a new tour, and he mentions in his offhand way about finally being able to really travel because of Glamour Springs finalizing his ceeded warrant. Magnus looks away from the table for a brief second, and while Merle jibes Taako about it, the dogs start to make their way towards Lucretia.

Johann first, who lifts his head off of Magnus’ knee, halting his begging for food to cross the table to Lucretia, whining insistently.

“Oh, Johann, shh, I don’t have any food,” Lucretia murmurs, reaching down to pet his ears.

Then Brian, a little yappy Chihuahua he’s fostering for Avery (whom Lucretia had named herself after an incident with a stolen scarf), scrabbles his way towards her. And then Noelle, his collie, puts her paws against Lucretia’s chair, rising up to nudge her elbows.

Taako falls silent as Lucretia gives a nervous giggle as she’s ringed with dogs.

“Magnus, m’dude, what the fuck is up with your dogs? Are they attracted to ice or something?” Taako asks, scooting his chair back away from the table as the dogs gather beneath the table.

“Taako, rude,” Magnus says. “But, uh, fuck if I know? Luce, did you sneakily feed any of them?”

“No,” Lucretia answers, sounding a little guilty.

Magnus snorts, peeking under the table to see Johann lapping at her fingers. “Hey, what’d I say about feeding them people food?”

“ _Uh_.”

Both Merle and Taako burst into laughter as Lucretia squirms in her chair as Noelle puts her paws in Lucretia’s lap, standing nose-to-nose with her. She blinks over the rim of her glasses at Noelle the dog, who licks her right over her mouth.

“Well, you made that bed, Lucretia,” Magnus laughs as Taako laughs so hard he has to duck under the table to brace his head against his knees.

“ _Eugh_ ,” Lucretia mutters, leaning back from Noelle while trying to scrub her sleeve over her mouth. “That’s absolutely disgusting—no, _down_!”

Magnus lets them play it off as Lucretia having too soft of a heart for all the dogs’ pleading, but Magnus recognizes that it wasn’t just a surreptitious scrap that had pulled all of the animals to her.

Her plate was clean after she’d shooed all the dogs away, except for Johann, who kept his chin in her lap (“he knows a sucker when he sees one,” Merle mock whispers), but Magnus never saw her take a bite, and she doesn’t partake in desert or even wine, spending the rest of the evening tucked away on a corner of the deck with Johann and Noelle as Angus, Mavis, and Mookie trudge up the hill towards Magnus’ home, faces smudged with grass and dirt from playing in the park only to come home to engage in a (relatively unfair) game of three-on-three soccer with Taako, Merle, Magnus and the rest of the dogs until Lup shows up in a rain of fireworks with Barry in tow.

In the fun, Magnus forgets to check up with Lucretia, and when he remembers, she’s leaving, her fingers on the transport rune on her bracer.

She gives him an absent kiss on the cheek, patting his hands as she smiles. “Thank you for having me, I’m sorry I can’t stay,” she says.

“Oh, it’s not—hey, Luc, are you okay?” he asks in a rush, watching as the glass sphere that’s been sent to collect her lowers closer, and she blinks at him, her smile crooked. There’s something off about the look she’s giving him, but he’s shocked to find he can't read it the way he used to be able to.

“Yes? I’m, well, I’m a little flustered, yes; we just had a contact fall through—and actually, Magnus, I might stop by soon, if you’d like to pick up some contracting work overseeing, god, about five hundred chairs?”

“Yeah, let me know,” he promises. “Are you gonna say bye to the others?”

Lucretia watches as Lup and Taako hold Angus’ soccer ball above his head. She snorts as Angus promptly plucks it back with Mage Hand, sticking his tongue out at Taako (and then promptly apologizing for it).

“No, I’ll see them all soon enough,” she says softly. “I’ll keep showing up until you tell me differently.”

“Lucretia,” Magnus says, shaking his head. “That won’t happen. I like spending time with you. Is it Taako? Is that’s what’s wrong?”

The noise she makes is noncommittal; she shakes her head, eyes fixed on Taako. Her fingers clasp around her ring finger, twisting against the bare skin. “No, no, we put that to bed, I just… we’re short handed at the Bureau and this has really messed up a lot… And the wedding is coming up in a few months, so I gave Carey and Killian more time off and. It's just. It's a lot right now. The… the daffodils are blooming early, and… I have to go.”

He almost believes her, despite not being able to parse her comment about the daffodils, but she steps backwards into the sphere with a practiced motion that, if it were anyone but Magnus watching her, would seem definite and graceful. All Magnus sees is Lucretia, decades younger, backing up against the deck of the ship, eyes wild as she crumples.

It might have been for work, but Magnus can see a tactical retreat when he sees one.


	10. Mirrored

He takes up the contracting position with the Bureau the second Killian lays out the plans and papers for him. It seems fun and gives him more time with his friends.

Also, someone has to keep an eye on Lucretia.

He’s sure Killian and Carey would do it in a heartbeat, but the old protectiveness of her rises in him without even a thought. He tells himself that they don’t need the extra worry, what with the wedding and honeymoon and all the planning that goes into those things—but really, he just wants to protect her from the others knowing. He knows she wouldn’t be able to bear it if they knew, knows how secretive she was during their century.

She’s stronger than she ever was before, the spark that started in her the year alone fanned into a flame that burns even now, glinting through steely eyes and the crook of her brows. She can make an entire room fall silent in seconds, she can decimate monsters and soldiers and assassins with a breath. No one questions her abilities now, her power just as molten as Lup’s, if not as showy.

But Magnus, more than anyone, knows just how destructive flames like that can be. No one else knows the symptoms of her weakening foundations, where the fire burns away the support beams in her heart; everyone else would simply see a beaconing light where he sees a forest about to be laid to waste.

No, it’s better that she comes to visit, that he has an excuse to call up lunch plans that she can’t cancel, to venture up to the base and know she will be waiting for him.

Sometimes they have to reschedule, sometimes they have to cut their meeting short, and in her absence, Magnus worries.

The more time they spend together, the more Magnus ends up thinking about Julia and his memories of Lucretia. It's like there are two mirror images of himself, one who is young and foolhardy, and the other who is older, yet not any wiser. 

Now that he knows, he recognizes that way he fell in love with Lucretia was a lot how he fell in love with Julia—slowly, without noticing, and then one day it was there, like a wildfire in his bones. There had been a day where Julia had simply handed him an order for something—probably a dinner table or a bookshelf or something simple—and he’d wanted to be by her side for forever. There had been nothing more he’d wanted in that moment as their fingers brushed and she laughed at the sawdust in his hair.

He remembers the moment so starkly—she’d brushed it from his hair and he’d grabbed her hand and grinned up at her. He’d asked her to dinner. And from there, for a walk. For a talk, because they could talk for ages, despite seeing each other all day at the shop. Julia had a mouth on her and Magnus adored it—she was witty and snarky and could kick his ass any day of the week at cards. And he had loved her, loved the town where she lived and called home, enough to fight a rebellion for.

He can't remember the exact moment he fell in love with Lucretia now; between Fisher and all the time between then and now, the memory has been muted and brushed over, a soft feeling feeling of fondness that permeated all of their early days together. It could have been her smiling, it could have been her crying. All that he remembers is that he loved her and tucked her close to protect her. 

One day, he watches the way Lucretia’s hands move, painting a picture as she tells a story of a particularly ungrateful mayor and a well placed bucket of paint (courtesy of Carey) over blueprints for her newest project, and he knows as she laughs that he loves her.

Maybe it’s again, maybe it’s _still_ , but he loves her as she is now, not as he remembers her.  It isn't residual fondness or a sense of honor or even because she’s family. It's _all_ of those things and more.

This time, he thinks, he will remember this moment. 


	11. Exhaust

Before she knows it, it’s April, and the first rounds of the Bureau’s new efforts are winding up. Raven’s Roost is completely habitable once again, Refuge is bustling, the reports she gets from Goldcliff are nothing less than wonderful, and Neverwinter’s library is restored, complete with new furnishings, thanks to Magnus’ efforts. A new wave of projects awaits underneath the last batch of paperwork for the old, threatening another year of break-neck activity for her and her Bureau. 

She can barely even fathom how she’s going to manage it all; just making it to the evening seems a challenge. She can’t even focus on Magnus in front her. 

“Thank you so much,” Lucretia breathes, sinking low in her chair. “You saved our asses.”

Magnus chuckles and shakes his head. “Nah, I was happy to help out. After all _you’ve_ done for me.”

She runs her hand over her face and leans her elbows into her desk. “If we’re gonna keep doing this, we’ll be here all night. Magnus, _really_ , thank you. Now hush.”

“What's a favor between friends, Lucy?” he murmurs, reaching across the table to touch her elbow gently.    

She feels her chest tighten, but she smiles softly. “I think it’s less of a favor when you’re being paid, you know?”

She draws her arms from her desk and folds her hands into her lap to curtail the urge to cover his hand with hers. Maybe a few months ago, she would have done it without even thinking—but now, she’s so tired.

She feels like she’s stuck; exhaustion presses on her shoulders and guilt eats at her edges. Magnus is so dear to her: He has always been a good friend to her, and he’d always been a doting lover, and it’s _so_ easy to sink back into the care he shows her and forget how much has changed.

Sometimes, she feels like she’s twenty-three and ageless all over again, walking the streets of a plane with him. But she isn’t. She’s almost fifty-five, and she’s covered in scars and stories that Magnus doesn’t know, with a failed marriage and a stepson who will never forgive her.

And she’s not sure she should be forgiven, honestly. Of all the people whose deaths are on her hands, Maureen’s is the least forgivable.

Though… if she asked Magnus, perhaps the hundreds who died in Raven’s Roost are the worst. 

To fall back with Magnus, when he is only kind to her out of ignorance of what she did in those ten years without him, when he is only kind to her because he still sees her as family, is just as heinous as the things she’s had to do to survive. She’d been a murderer far before she became the Director, and as the time passes, it becomes more and more unforgivable that she hasn’t told him yet. He needs to know, but she knows that in knowing, this all would stop: the friendship, the kindness, the forgiveness, it would vanish the second she told him what she and Maureen did. 

But it’s so easy to tell herself that it’s not time. That he’s still grieving Julia, that he’s still recovering from the return of his memories. It’s too close to Carey and Killian’s wedding, their family has only just started being a coherent unit again, that Taako went a whole dinner last week without being rude to her and even Davenport, while frosty when he’s come to visit, is speaking to her and how can she ruin that now? 

It’s so easy to make excuses, and it’s so easy to let her guard down and forget who she is and why they’re like this. 

It’s so easy to love Magnus. How could she not, when she never had stopped in the first place? Feeding his memories to Fisher hadn’t erased how she’d felt, how she’d loved him for fifty years and only spent thirty of those with him—a lifetime, it was a lifetime of loving him, and she couldn’t forget it, not even when he loved someone else, when _she_ loved someone else.

She loves them both, Maureen and Magnus. Because how could she not? Her unfinished loves, her unresolved relationships. For her, there was no end to her feelings, no tied up knots on the loose strings of their love. 

She keeps Maureen’s habits of telling time by the flowers—daffodils for Maureen’s birthday, foxglove for her own, honeysuckle for their wedding day—still thinks of her when she walks the quad. When her ankle aches and her chest is tight, she still longs for Maureen’s skilled hands and homemade oils even though it’s been two years since she’d last had the luxury. She misses Maureen just as much as she did the day she realized that they were over, as the day that Lucas had dumped her letters onto her desk and announced that his mother had died.

In many ways, even though Maureen is dead, dead for real—not like Lup or Barry or even Magnus—there’s so much unfinished. Lucas refuses to tell her where he buried his mother, will not visit with her, and so Lucretia must live with knowing that she will never know, never be able to grieve as Maureen’s wife and Lucas’ stepmother. She will never have that closure. She can only be the half-person she made for herself, the compartmentalized Director who has to say a quick word for her fallen employees and move along, because that was what Maureen thought of her, and that was who Lucas expects her to be. 

It feels so wrong to be carrying that while falling back in love with Magnus. Raven’s Roost and her hand in it be damned, Fisher be damned, what she did and will probably still do be damned—she feels _so_ guilty for loving him like she does when Maureen still haunts her. 

The least she can do for her memory is to say true to her—like Magnus is to Julia. She’d promised Maureen so much—all of her days, all of her words, all of her heart—and she’d failed at so many of her other promises that the least she can do is this.

But she is old, she is guilty, and she is _tired_.

She’s long since past the point where it’s manageable—she’s run out of potions and powders to keep her going, her food tastes like sand, she’s understaffed and yet, there is still more to do, still more people who need her. Exhaustion drapes over her like a cloak, and many nights are spent just staring at nothing until the sun rises and she has to swing her aching limbs from her bed and repeat it all again.

Who on this plane could honesty love her? She loves them all so much, gives as much as she can to her friends and family and to the people who just know her name and face from the Story—yet, of them all, who could love her? How could any of them, given what she has done? When Maureen, who had always been gentle and forgiving, had finally had enough of her? When people come and go from her Bureau like a tide? When the only people of her family who can bear her company for long periods of time are her former lover and a woman who was hidden away in an umbrella for the worst of what she’s done?

How could she have been so stupid to fall in love with Magnus again, when he’s not showing her any special attention? He’s just being Magnus, the way he’s always been. 

But she’s always been weak to kindness, to even the most platonic of affections. She has always been weak when it came to Magnus, and she knows that when the time comes, this weakness will kill her. It will be the final blow in her matchstick heart; she must tell him, because she loves him, but she can't because she doesn’t know how she’ll survive when the comforts of his company are gone.  

“Hey, Lucretia?”

She looks up from her desk, blinking rapidly to clear her vision. “Yes?”

“You, uh, you zoned out there for a moment.”

“I’m sorry, I’m just… I’m a little tired,” she confesses, rubbing her temples. “Now that we’ve got all the balls rolling, I think I may have stretched my capabilities a bit…”

“You know, I… I would have done it even without you paying me,” he says uncomfortably. He rubs the back of his neck and shrugs before starting to fidget with the stack of papers before him on her desk. “I know you’re doing a lot to give Carey and Killian a break, and that’s really sweet, but I think you need to replace their hands while they have the time off for the wedding and such. I… if you need me, you know I’m available, right?”

Lucretia smiles softly, her throat tight. It takes her a moment to compose herself enough to speak. “Thank you,” she whispers.

Despite her better judgment, she reaches across her desk and pats his hand. “It means a lot.”

She is old, she is weak, and she is tired, but just for a moment, the weight lifts as he turns his hand up to lace their fingers together. 

He grins at her, crooked and endearing and she knows there was never a chance, ever, where she couldn’t—wouldn’t— smile back at him. 


	12. Bonds

Killian’s head peeks into her office at the same time she knocks. “Hey, um. Director, do you have a moment?”

“Come in. You actually have spectacular timing, I was just about to go,” Lucretia says. “I’m going down for lunch with Magnus in about an hour, so, you got me at a good time.”

“Thanks. Um, you're not—”

“No! No sarcasm,” she chuckles.

Killian strides in and stands awkwardly in front of her desk, first at attention, then relaxed, rubbing the back of her neck. “Um. Thanks, first for, for all you're doing for me and Carey, Madame, it's. Thank you.”

“Killian, you _really_ needn’t be formal with me anymore,” Lucretia murmurs. “You’re one of the most senior members I have—you’ve been here since the beginning.”

“Yeah, about that,” Killian leads.

“Dear god, you’re not quitting, are you?”

“No! No, no, nope!” Killian laughs. “No! Not at all. I just. Carey and I are getting married. And you, well, you had a lot to do with that,” she says, waving a hand in the air. “This place. All of it. Um. And I wanted to ask a favor of you.”

“You can't have more time off,” Lucretia says lightly.

Killian laughs and sits. “Well nuts. No. Um. You. You and Doc Miller, you two changed my life when you two recruited me. And. I, I know that, um. A lot of people left after everything went down. And I don't—the old crew just isn’t around anymore.”

Lucretia feels her throat tighten. Killian’s voice trails off and Lucretia knows she’s running the same mental tally.

Of the founding members, only four of them are still alive. Her, Killian, Brad, and Lucas. Avi came a little later than the rest of them, but somehow, he, too, had made it out alive.

So many had died, going after Relics they never had a chance of recovering. Killed by her family, by her Relics and her friends. Brian, Leeman, Boyland, Bain, Maureen, Johann.

“Killian, I. I am… I… I wish they could be there,” she whispers softly.

“I… I thought of a way, maybe. Um. So Carey is doing this thing where, she asked Magnus if he remembers what played at his wedding for his and his wife’s first dance to play at the reception. And, I wondered if you would… if you would let us use you and Doc Miller’s song, Director.”

Lucretia makes a noise like she's been wounded. She covers her mouth with her hand and shakes her head just slightly.

“Killian, dear,” she whispers hoarsely. “I would, but… we—I just don't know if it would be good luck to play that song, given how Maureen and I ended up.”

“You two loved each other,” Killian says firmly. “Seeing you two back then meant—it meant a lot to me, where I was when you saved me. You both worked hard with Johann on that song, and I can think of no better way to honor him, Maureen, and, and you, even, than to play that song.”

Lucretia closes her eyes slowly, nodding. “I see that I can't change your mind at all, can I?”

“You were always, and will always be, Director Miller to me,” Killian says firmly.

Lucretia feels her mouth tremble. “You can't use the words,” she whispers. “Those are too—just the melody. If you are sure.”

“I am,” Killian says. “Thank you, I. I can come by later if you have the original score.”

“I do,” Lucretia murmurs. She feels far away, unstuck from time. She is both in her office and in a wooded copse, the sound of a piano in her ears. She is younger and unaware of the hurt that is to come, but she is also here, looking at the woman she’d saved from a marauded town, still in her evening gown with Maureen crashing towards her in heels too high to be safe, fresh from a party to solicit money for their floating laboratory. “I hope that you and Carey will— don't repeat mine and Maureen’s mistakes. Never take her for granted, never assume that she will understand something.”

“For what it’s worth, Director,” Killian says softly. “If it weren’t for the Stone, I think you and Doc Miller would have. You would have made it, eventually.”

“Thank you,” Lucretia says absently.

Killian stands, then pauses and leans across Lucretia’s desk, tugging her into a half hug. “Thank you,” she echoes back. “It doesn't matter what anyone else has said to you, or what you think, but I. I wouldn't have met Carey if it weren't for you and your weirdo moon paramilitary shit. In my book, this is the best thing. Carey feels the same way. So many other people here do too. It sucks that people died. Like, it super hardcore sucks balls but shit! People die all the time on the continent and like, we did do good. So.”

She pulls away and shrugs. “So, thank you.”

Lucretia nods numbly, staring absently across her desk even once Killian is gone.


	13. Pieces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick heads up, this chapter deals with both dissociating and there is a panic attack in this chapter. 
> 
> Here, [have a song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOfJ-fdHM2k) that I wrote this chapter to!

When Lucretia arrives for lunch, Magnus can tell that something is off. She’s not holding conversation very well: she lets her words trail off and she sighs and shrugs instead of giving full answers, and she mistakes their current project for their last one when their discussion turns to the Bureau. She picks at their meal and has a vague look in her eye as she chews.

He can recognize a bad day when he sees one, but unlike before, he’s not sure what to do. He used to take her back to her room and sit with her—depending on the day, or how bad she felt; sometimes he would just sit on the floor and watch Fisher swim with her, his thumb tracing circles into her palm. Sometimes he’d help her pull her clothes off and they would lock the door and crawl into bed and he would wrap his arms around her tightly, tucking her small body against his own. Sometimes all she needed was a cup of tea and to be left alone, but those times were rare—she almost always wanted some sort of companionship, even if he was three feet away and silent.

He lures her into staying past lunch with the promise of Lup, who’s coming for a visit with Angus later that evening. That seems to perk her up enough that she offers to do the dishes for him so he can run to the market in town for some more potatoes and carrots.

He’s worried about leaving her alone, so he leaves Johann in the kitchen with her when he goes.  She might not talk to him, but maybe she’ll take comfort in the company of the dogs.

He hurries through his shopping, jogging home with his bags. If he were decades younger, he wouldn't have left her at all. The anxiousness at leaving her alone when he knows she’s having a bad day claws a need deep in his gut—to see her, to protect her, to make sure she’s safe.

Johann greets him at the door. He whines, and his tail thuds once, then he cocks his head towards the kitchen and barks softly.

“What is it, boy?” Magnus asks, recognizing the way Johann whines again. But _he’s_ fine, he isn’t doing anything that would cause Johann to act like this. Yeah, he’s a little anxious, but he isn’t panicking, isn’t having an attack. He only just got in—the only other person in the house is Lucretia, he thinks and…

Oh. Huh.  He didn’t realize that Johann’s training would kick in around other people too.

“Ok, go on, show me,” he says and Johann stands up and trots into the kitchen. Lucretia stands at the sink, a plate in her hand as the water runs but she’s not moving.

She stands, her eyes fixed out the small window.

Johann sits beside Magnus, and Magnus isn’t sure what to do. She’s never quite liked being touched when she does this, he remembers her shouting and flailing, and one particularly spectacular moment where she nearly Magic Missile’d his head off before he’d even realized that she… it’s not that she isn’t _right_ , but it’s just that sometimes, too much is wrong at once.

“Lucretia,” he calls. She doesn’t answer.

Her hands shake against the plate, and her lips twist and she’s humming under her breath, and then muttering. Muttering, and then humming and if Magnus wasn’t so familiar with her, he’d probably find it unsettling. But he knows Lucretia, knows her tics and her fears.

He used to do the same thing; he didn't have his memories then, didn't remember why storms made him uneasy or sometimes he would just feel _wrong._  

He remembers Julia touching his face where it was stitched and healing; when he would wake up, hear her telling him it was over, it was over; and then, waking in an inn, knowing it wasn’t and that Julia was gone—and in a blink, the sun would be glaring through his window.

Just the other day, he’d woken up in a cold sweat, feeling like the oily columns of the Hunger were around his throat—the feeling of nothingness, of being dead, of being a mannequin—but then Johann, plopped himself right on down in his lap and pulled him out.

He is so grateful that Avery had thought—and had the gall—to ask him if he wanted a therapy dog when he’d let it slip that he’d had nightmares.

“Lucretia,” he says again, inching closer.

Johann whines. His nails click on the floor as he makes his way to Lucretia’s feet. He nudges his head against her knee, then barks twice, sharp and loud.

She shakes herself out of her daze, then looks down at Johann, who barks again, tongue lolling out as she reaches down to scratch his ear absently. “Hey, there, Magnus said no treats while he’s out.”

“Hey, Luce,” Magnus calls softly, reaching out to tap the counter near her elbow.

She jolts and blinks up at him, eyes wide behind her glasses. “Oh—yikes, Magnus, I didn’t hear you come in; did you forget something?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. He wants to touch her, cup her face and pull her close like he used to—but they haven’t talked about this, haven’t discussed what he can do for her like this.

He hasn’t pieced out his role here yet. But Lucretia is so incredibly important to him, she’s family. He can’t not do something when she’s hurting alone.

“I’ve already come and gone,” he explains gently.

“That’s not funny,” Lucretia says, and Johann judges her hand and paws at the floor. “Johann, no treats buddy.”

“Actually, give him one,” Magnus says. “He’s been good, and he did his job.”

“What? He _just_ had a treat.”

“Lucy,” he says gently. He reaches out and shuts the tap off, and takes the plate from her fingers. “Let’s go sit and have tea.”

“We just ate lunch.”

“No, we had lunch two hours ago,” Magnus says, still in the soft voice he uses on the children with shaky hands who’ve started to come to him to learn how to keep themselves safe.

He takes Lucretia’s hand in his own; it’s slick with soap and clammy. He rubs his thumbs between her fingers, over her palm. It’s so cold under his touch; he rolls her fingers between both of his palms, trying to bring back some circulation to them.

“Magnus, you aren’t very funny,” Lucretia says sternly, but her eyes dart from the window to the clock on the shelf, all gears and arcana, a gift from Angus, and her lips purse in slow realization.

“I’m going to make us tea, and I think, maybe open up those cookies Taako sent along.”

“Magnus… what was I doing?” she asks softly, her voice shaking as she gazes at the clock.

He sees fear creep across her face, glazing her eyes as her mouth shakes. Johann whines and then barks sharply.

“Luce, hey, Luce,” Magnus says firmly. He cups her jaw between his thumb and forefinger, turning her head to face him. “Don’t. Don’t. Lucy, look at me.”

“…I lost time,” she says.

“I know, let’s sit. Sit down and have some tea and talk a little.”

He lets her go and turns her gently, both hands on her shoulders as he walks her into the living room. She sits on the dog-hair covered sofa, and Johann promptly climbs up and drapes himself over her lap. Her fingers start to stroke him absently as she looks up at Magnus.

She looks lost. She’s looking at him like he remembers, those days before he’d gotten it together and kissed her back when they were younger. Like she’s lost and looking to him to guide her home.

But where is _his_ home? For so long it was with them, in the ship; and then it was with her, in her heart—anywhere, as long as his hand was in hers. And then, it was Raven’s Roost, with Julia. His home had been Julia, and then he’d been adrift for so long. And then, his home was back with them, back with Merle and Taako, and her. She’d given him yet another home, but she’s looking to _him_ for answers.

He’d thought, once, as long as they were together, it wouldn’t matter if they were lost.

He thinks, now, that it matters very much that they’re lost.

So, where is _her_ heart’s home? What keeps her tethered and here, even when she's unmoored in her mind, what keeps her coming back? Was it lost with Maureen Miller; was it gone now that their century’s journey is over? Is it something that he can provide for her?

He kneels before her, idly petting Johann as he chooses his words.

“Lucy… back… back in our century, you… you suffered, a lot. Night terrors. Flashbacks. There were a lot of times that I would wake up and you were still awake, staring at nothing at all.”

She turns her head from him. They’ve never really talked directly about the lingering traumas of her year alone, or how she would sometimes fall to pieces when things got bad. They all had their issues, he thinks, but he was the most familiar with hers and his own.He feels his face begin to flush, but he doesn’t back down.

“It got better with time, a little, but… things just got worse and worse, and then when we got here… Lucretia, did it ever get any better? At all? Have you still, do you still…”  he trails off, feeling awkward. 

“Have mental breakdowns?” she asks, her voice and posture brittle. She cuts off Magnus’ protest with a short laugh. “Imagine if the world could see me, imagine, the Director, falling to pieces because of what she did with her own hands.”

“Don’t be harsh on yourself, Lucretia, we… went through so much,” he says. “It’s hard—I never appreciated how hard it was until I… What I’m saying, Lucretia, is that I go through it too. You don’t have to be alone for it. You never had to, it was silly that we all… we all just shoved it under the rug when it got real bad for us at the end there, and… We didn’t have to do that.”

“Oh, Magnus, I didn’t know,” Lucretia breathes. “I’m so sorry, it’s my fault.”

Magnus rolls his eyes and pats her hands. “Nah,” he says. “Don’t blame yourself.”

“It _is_ my fault,” she says again. Her fingers shake in his, and Magnus is startled to see the tears start to pour down her cheeks. “Oh, Magnus, I’m sorry for everything. I never meant to make you suffer.”

Johann whines and shifts, licking at Lucretia’s face. She pushes at him gently, but he presses his paws heavy against her lap and she laughs, finally, rubbing her fingers through the thick fur around his neck. He nudges her cheek with his nose and she lays her head against his head, hugging him around the shoulders.

Magnus sits beside her and puts a hand on her back, rubbing over the base of her neck with his thumb. “You don’t have to keep being sorry,” he says softly. “Don’t forget I know you—Lucretia, you don’t have to keep reliving it all alone. If you ask for help—if you need it or want it, I’ll do what I can.”

She shakes her head slowly as she combs her fingers through Johann’s coat. “I’ll be all right,” she says.

“Is there anything that you… take or do— anything at all? Like your sleeping potions or—has it been like this for the entire ten years you were alone?” he urges, hand sliding to the center of his back. “Is there _anything_ at all?”

Lucretia’s breath rattles as she sighs slowly. “Maureen made up a compound for me, just herbs and such, and I used to get it at an apothecary she supplied sometimes, but… I ran out and… I haven’t been able to get any.”

“Is it a—it is it like, they can’t make it anymore thing, since Maureen… um… she… If you can remember, Merle might could help you.”

She shakes her head harder and her muscles tense. Johann whines and starts to squirm in her lap.

“No,” she says, voice thin. “I—I can’t go in the shop. I—I, before they… they didn’t know wh-who I was, I was j-just a customer,  I was just Miss Miller’s wife—a- and, now, n…now _everyone_ does,” she says, and suddenly she is twenty three and in the back room before a press conference, trying to stay small and out of sight. She’s crying at night because their world is gone, and she had hidden away from it all, and there is no more hiding from these people—who will have to know her now, know her intimately and look her in the eye. She is twenty three and fifty years and being sized with fear in the middle of the night of being the only person on their crew who gets rejected by this Light of Creation and she fills her room with paint and turpentine until she is exhausted and dizzy. She’s forty five and in a room full of aristocrats and stumbling in heels because her ankle is stiff and she has no last name and no story to account for why, and they look at her so strangely. She is herself, yesterday, in a lecture hall discussing the rebuilding of an entire town and being shot down from all sides even though her ideas are sound and she has proven herself already.

“They all know who I _am_ ,” she stammers, the fear rising up in her.  It claws her open and leaves her weak, her hands cold and shaking and her mouth dry. She’s terrified, her heart racing in her chest and she’s facing down the judge’s mercenaries, she’s looking at the wheel in Wonderland, she’s in front of Fisher’s tank as she feeds them each carefully crafted page. Every faceless person she’s ever come across looms over her in her mind, pressing over her mouth and nose, their eyes boring into her as they shove her smaller and smaller. They are Taako, sneering at her as she struggles to seem unaffected to spare them all her burdens. They are Lucas, screaming at her in the transportation dome of the Bureau, because she as good as killed Maureen. They are all the sum of her actions, yet she is not strong enough to bear this weight.

“I c-can’t—they know what it’s _for_ and,  I’m supposed to have—how pitiful it is that I  can’t, I did it, ev-everyone knows what I _did_ , I did it and I _knew_ what it meant so why, why am I so weak? I’m supposed to be a, a—they say I’m a _hero_ and that I saved them , that I did, I did what I thought was n-necessary but, but I—I can’t even sleep an-anymore, I was supposed to be strong— I can’t face them, I can’t, I—”

“Stop,” Magnus says sternly, rubbing her back slowly. “Stop. Breathe. Lucretia. Apothecaries  mix medicines for all sorts, including heroes. Everyone knows, they know all of it. They saw. No one has the right or place to make any sort of judgment, and even if they did, they wouldn’t _dare_ do it to your face. You take your medicine; we’re going to get it, you and me, tomorrow.”

“I can’t ask that of you, Magnus,” she whispers.

“Will you go with Lup, then?” Magnus asks, gently reaching out with his other hand to turn her chin towards him.

“I can’t—” Lucretia starts and Magnus shakes his head softly. “She’s so busy.”

“Lup will make time for you, I know she will,” he says. “I promise. We three could go together, all of us. Make a day trip of it and have lunch. Even if it’s just you and Lup, you _need_ to go, Lucretia. Please go, for me?”

Lucretia sighs slowly, her mouth trembling. “If she’s free, I—I guess,” she murmurs, eyes downcast.

“Good. She’ll be excited to spend time with you,” he says. He brushes her hair back from her forehead and cups the back of her head with his hand in an old gesture of fondness. He presses their foreheads together, closing his eyes. “Lucretia, please, if there’s ever anything I can do for you, let me help. Call me, come see me, ask me for any favor you need.”

“I can’t ask that of you,” Lucretia repeats, shaking her head slightly.

Magnus pulls away and rubs Johann’s head, then scratches his ears as he pretends to think for a moment.

Johann’s tail thuds against Magnus’ thigh and he grins crookedly. “How about you ask it of this big guy, then?” he murmurs. He ruffles his hand against Johann’s ears, then pats him fondly on the side. “Johann is all ears, and paws. He’s pretty good for cheering people up, and he can sing!”

“Oh, _no_ , Magnus, that’s not necessary—”

But before she’s even gotten all the words out, Magnus has playfully thrown his head back and howled, setting Johann into an answering wail right into Lucretia’s ear.

She laughs, shoving both Magnus and Johann away as they lean into her, and Magnus grins, wrapping his arm around her waist as tight as he can, and she leans into him, her hands over her face as she dissolves into tears.

“Please come with me,” she whispers, “It means so much that you—that you, you and Lup, that you two are still—please.”

“You don’t even have to ask, Lucretia, shhh.”

She nods, wrapping her arms tightly around Johann as he laps at her face. She grins slowly, resting her head against the dog’s chest, eyes falling shut. “Terrible wailing aside, this is a good dog, Magnus, ten of ten.”

Magnus laughs and pats Johann fondly, an idea blossoming in the back of his mind. “Yeah, he’s a really good boy. You want to go up to the guest room and lay down for a little with him? He’s a good cuddler.”

She nods slowly, hands moving lazily through Johann’s coat as he sits patiently, tongue lolling out happily. “That’s… yeah, that sounds nice… wake me if I’m not ready when Lup and Angus show up?”

“Yeah. Have a good nap, Lucretia,” he murmurs as she stands. He looks at Johann and nods towards her, “Go on, go with Lucretia. Good.”

He watches her disappear into the guestroom, chest tight with a tight ball of grief and tenderness. It takes every ounce of self-restraint he has not to just follow her, to curl up next to her and pet her hair until she sleeps. The place where she was already feels cold, his arms strangely empty. He presses his head into his palms and sighs, rattled still by the fear that had shook Lucretia’s voice.

He hopes that maybe, he can ease it just a little.  


	14. Respite

Magnus told her to take a nap, but she doesn’t think she’ll sleep. She lies down in the guest room, curling underneath a flannel throw with Johann wiggling into place beside her.

She looks up at the white-washed wooden ceiling, eyes burning with exhaustion. She rolls to face Johann, who gives a soft yawn, teeth clicking shut after he exhales hot, damp, doggy breath against her cheek.

She laughs and scoots up out of the cloud of dog breath, tucking her knees up. She rubs her hand through his fur, slowly feeling her way back into herself. The fear and embarrassment that had gripped her so tightly slowly seeps away as she settles into the mattress, warm and soft.

The bed linens smell like dog and the pine trees Magnus had Merle plant around the border of his property to protect against the harsh winds on the ridges.

It indistinctly smells like Magnus’ soap beneath the sheets—the one they all use when they spend the night or wash their hands, a mix of cedarwood and citrus and some herb she remembers from Maureen’s gardens and that Magnus keeps forgetting to ask the lady down the way that makes it for him.

But the scent is faint and mostly half remembered, a phantom scent conjured by the idea of settling down into the room she knows Magnus sleeps in when the dogs require his company.

It’s still incredibly comfortable, especially with the warmth that Johann provides against her stomach.

“Your breath is rank as shit, bud, but your rowdy boy was right, you are a good cuddler,” she mumbles to Johann, letting her hand rest against his side. He lolls his head to the side, giving her a grade-A stink eye and she laughs. “Okay, I’ll try to nap.”  

She closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, the room is darker and Lup is crawling underneath the blanket as Johann huffs and jumps off the bed.

“Hey Miss Ma’am,” Lup whispers, grinning over at Lucretia as she stirs awake.

“Hey, Lady,” Lucretia mumbles, lifting her arm obediently as Lup wriggles her way up against the curve of her stomach. “Was I asleep?”

“Mm, yeah,” Lup says, wrapping an arm around Lucretia’s waist.

“Weird,” she yawns. “I don't remember falling asleep.”

Lup brushes her fingers against Lucretia’s face, fingers lingering against the curve of her cheek. Lucretia feels her chest seize at the gesture, body screaming out for the visceral comfort of another body against her own.

It must show on her face, because Lup's face goes soft in a way that that Lucretia associates with late nights and cocoa and times long past.

Lup tugs her closer, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. “I know, Lucy,” she says.

Lup arranges her against her body, tucking Lucretia up against her chest. “Magnus said you wanted to talk to me?”

Lucretia nods, curling her fingers into the soft cotton of Lup’s tee shirt. “Tomorrow, I. Or. Um—I have, I—Lup, I… there’s um. S-so! Maureen Miller trained as a Druid,” she blurts out. “Didn't get too far, but she knew a lot about healing and knew people who, who studied more about minds than bodies.”

Lup makes a quiet noise of acknowledgement, rubbing Lucretia’s back. “Yeah?”

Lucretia squirms in discomfort. “There was a time after we met where I was, when I was injured and I didn't get better. Mentally. My wounds were healed but I had trouble walking or sleeping or talking and she said that, that I— Um, that… Uh—that… Wonderland it, that… but it wasn’t just that, the, the um. The Relic Wars, and well, she… What I mean, is… I…”

“Lucretia, honey, if it's hard, you don't have to say it, I get it,” Lup whispers.

“There’s medicine I take,” Lucretia says, sitting up quickly, feeling like there’s ants crawling all over her body. Her skin hurts where Lup has touched—she feels panicked and too large for her body. “I—I’ve been taking it for, for, for a long time.”

She rubs her hands over her face, breath shuddering out of her as she jiggles her foot. It hurts to sit still. She needs to pace, needs to move, needs to get this feeling out from under her skin. “But I—I ran out. I got some right before—right before the Hunger, and I ran out six months ago. I… I don’t want them to know me. I didn’t want the world to know who I was.”

“And now we’re legends. Oh, Lucretia. _Honey_ ,” she breathes, voice pained. “I understand. Of course I’ll go with you. I need to pick up sleeping potions anyway.”

“You don’t need to sleep,” Lucretia says petulantly.

“But I _like_ to,” Lup shoots back. “I’d like to have a nap for once without being stuck in black velvet.”

And just like that the jittery pain fades. Lucretia slumps back in the pillows, her arms over her face. “Sorry,” she mumbles.

“Nah,” Lup says gently. She gingerly puts her hand on Lucretia’s stomach, and Lucretia looks through her forearms at her. “You and me, nightmare city.”

“Lup,” Lucretia complains, dropping her arms. Lup grins and rests her cheek against Lucretia’s shoulder, dropping her hand to lace their fingers together.

“Miss Ma’am,” Lup says gently. “I love you—you can ask me for anything at all.”

“Lup, I can’t—I… because of me…You’ve already gone through so much… ”

Lup squeezes her hand tightly. “Lucretia. Do you want to know something? I died a _month_ after I left. I was gone. I had no clue. Taako and Barry, they told me a little of what happened when I was gone, but it wasn’t all of it. And I knew they were holding back, just… I didn’t know what.”

She sighs, and rolls onto her side. Lucretia follows the movement, watching Lup’s brows twist together as she scowls.

“But when… when we were made Reapers, me and Bear had to sit through a cross examination. It… it was like the damn judges all over again. It was dark, and it was just us and all these… voices, whispers. They came up, one by one, and told our stories in the voices of the people we killed here. What happened to Barry, what he did, I didn’t know. All the killing and the ruthlessness and the dying, over and over and over. I… I didn’t talk to him about it for a _week_. I was so angry, I was so _sad_. I sleep, and I see him, the way I never got to see him—the way I knew he could be, because we all had to be—falling and dying and losing control and it’s. It’s my fault. It was my fault. I did that. I did that to him, and he didn’t want me to know, because he knew—and… what I mean, Lucretia is… don’t hold back because you don’t want to hurt me. Or hurt Magnus. Or _anyone_. It only hurts us more.”

“Oh,” Lucretia murmurs. “Oh…”

She scoots forward, pressing their foreheads together. She and Lup had always been tactile, and they’d spent so many nights curled up together, commiserating together about the cluelessness of men—even after Barry and Lup had gotten together in Legato. Sometimes they talked the mission, sometimes they talked about their home plane, and their secret hopes of restoring it one day.

Sometimes they talked of nothing at all. Lup makes her feel comfortable in the odd sort of way that growing into oneself feels, awkward pinches and tingles but a sense of stable calm once everything settles. She winds her body against Lup’s, reveling in the nostalgic comfort of her cinnamon scented skin and body heat (although a Reaper, she’d been allowed her living human form for as long as it was beneficial to the Raven Queen, a lackadaisical whimsy that Lucretia doesn’t understand, but will not question). The bony jut of her elbow in her side as they wiggle together, the tickle of Lup’s wispy hair on her face—all of it, all of it is overwhelming and grounding at the same time.

It’s home, here, too, like when Magnus puts his hand on her elbow or grins at her a certain way.

“I’m so glad you’re still here,” Lucretia whispers, a quiet confession she’s been holding back for nearly a year, one that she hasn’t felt entitled to whispering.

“I’m glad _you’re_ still here,” Lup whispers, brushing her knuckles against Lucretia’s cheek. “Sometimes it seems like you’re not you at all. I know people change, and ten years is a long time, but I was so afraid I’d never see you again.”

“I’m not much like myself anymore,” Lucretia admits.

“When I see you with Magnus, with Angus, you’re _you_ ,” Lup says softly.

Lucretia’s heart squeezes, then flips, fluttering heavily in her chest. She ducks her head against the onslaught of emotions.

“C’mon girly, let’s get up and make sure the boys don’t ruin dinner,” Lup whispers.

“Magnus and Angus are perfectly capable,” Lucretia says, holding Lup tight to her. “Stay a little longer?”

* * *

The village of Penhallow borders the Felicity Wilds. It’s small, overwrought with the forest that swallows up homes if the inhabitants aren’t careful. The cobbled streets are worn smooth and moss grows through the old cracks, and it’s just like it was nearly a year ago when she visited last. It’s just like it was the day she rode into it with Maureen and Lucas, confined to the cart because of her broken ankle and poor stamina. Just like all the times she came later. Unchanging, untouched by the Hunger and her hands—just the village and the Wilds, the way it’s been for the past decade here.

Something like fear sizes in her chest, but Lup’s hand finds her elbow, fingers curling gently around her arm as Lup steps up to her side. Johann snuffles along the road by her feet, lead loose in Magnus’ hand.

“This way,” Lucretia murmurs slowly. “The um, the apothecary is this way.”

“Any good eats here?”

“Actually, yeah, there’s a bakery on the same street that, honestly, they do these cinnamon twist things that, please eat them and learn to make them,” Lucretia says, trying to distract herself from the way her palms feel clammy even though her face feels like she’s been standing in the sun. She twists her hands together, knuckles cracking as she laces and squeezes her fingers together.

Lup runs her hand against Lucretia’s elbow. “Do you want to go there first?”

Lucretia shakes her head and takes a deep breath. She calls up the image of her staff in her hands and steel in her spine, eyes closing briefly as she shuts herself into a little box, the smallest she can imagine. She curls her fingers inwards, folding her hands together at her waist and swallows. It’s still there at the edges—her heart still flutters and her hands are cold still even though the air is warm and her mouth is so dry she’s afraid that when she speaks, nothing will come out. But like this, it’s a bit more manageable, with everything shoved to the back of her mind.

“Let’s go,” she says, and she doesn’t really hear herself, she hears the Director, who has always managed to handle the unmanageable when Lucretia can’t.

Nothing has changed, the scent of bread  and smoke mingles with fresh herbs and the green smell of the forest, and the apothecary is the same worn and ivy-covered stone building as always, the wildflowers and herbs around it bright and green from the cleric within.

Lup follows her in—Magnus lingers outside with Johann, ready to rush inside if he’s needed.

The bell chimes behind them as the door closes, and the same elven woman as always greets them with her back turned. “Be with y’in just a minute,” she drawls.

Lucretia shifts anxiously, and Lup pats her elbow, then bends down to examine a row of sparkling vials in the glass counter.

The woman turns and starts to speak, then cuts herself off with a quick gasp. “Oh, it’s you! Goodness, I’ve been worried,” she says, reaching out for Lucretia’s hands. “Everyone here was so startled last year—to think when we said you and Maureen could save the world, it’d be literal!”

“Oh, well,” Lucretia stammers, feeling her face grow warm.

“I made up your powders a few months ago expecting you to come in and you never came, and here we were so worried, but I said to them, we’d have heard if something had happened,” she continues on, patting Lucretia’s hand. “What with Lucas stopping by to let us know his mother had passed—you poor things, you—and to tell us about his school and all he’d say was that you were busy.”

“Yes,” Lucretia breathes, “Um. The Bureau, we uh, I was leading rebuilding efforts across the continent, and time well, it slipped by me.”

The woman nods and wags a finger. “You’ve always been bad about that, you and that wife of yours. Still, you shouldn’t let yourself run out; it’s bad for your body.”

“I know,” Lucretia murmurs, sounding very much like she’s heard the argument before. Lup snorts, and pats her shoulder. “Oh, um, this is my friend Lup—she’d like a sleeping tonic too, maybe the one I use?”

“Won’t do for an elf. I’ve got some for mediation and naps,” she says, ducking below the counter. There’s some shuffling, clanking, and a puff of bright blue smoke. She emerges with a small case and two large bottles, one a pretty shade of emerald, the other aquamarine. “There you two girls go.”  

“Thank you,” Lucretia murmurs, reaching for her coin purse.

Lup stops her, “I’ve got it, Lucy. You’ve been working hard. And I want those cinnamon twist things, so you need to buy all of them.”

Lucretia blinks and shakes her head with a small sigh. “I should have known.”

The woman laughs. “There’s orange ones now, too. See you soon, Lucretia. Thank you.”

“No, thank you,” Lucretia murmurs.

They step out of the shop—Lucretia blinks back tears in the sunlight, inhaling deeply. It wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t bad at all.

It’s such a novel thing.


	15. Something Borrowed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't been keeping up on notes for this, so if there's anything anyone wants to know or chat about, feel free to hit up my tumblr!

Magnus bawls like a baby at Carey and Killian’s wedding.

He can’t help it—not after everything, not after a year of hope so thick that it beads up and dews and becomes crystallized in the forms of new families and new cities and light. Also: he’s a  _sucker_  for weddings.

He hasn’t been to one since his own, though, and it… It hurts, but not as much as he was afraid it would. There’s something about it, about how overjoyed Carey is, about seeing everyone together again, all at once; about how he’d sat with her and her brother, humming the tune that he only half remembered from his own wedding for her, reconstructing it for Carey’s ‘something borrowed’. The meaning of hearing it, seeing them dance to it, is overwhelming and cathartic. It feels like a second chance, even though Julia is gone. She’s gone and one day, he’ll see her again.

It won’t be soon, unless someone runs him through with a cake knife on the dance floor. It might be in ten, twenty, thirty years—maybe even more—but that’s not long at all. Not really. Not anymore. It’s a little lonely to think about, sure, but… he’s not exactly alone anymore, is he?

Because this  _is_  his second chance. This is the family he thought he would never have again after she died, the family he thought he wouldn’t get the chance to build while they were fleeing the Hunger cycle after cycle. It’s okay to still be here, it’s okay to enjoy it—it’s a hard lesson he had to learn, but he knows it.

He spins Carey off to Killian, and swaps partners. Like his own wedding, he’s intent on not sitting for more than he has to—he wants to see everyone, chat, laugh and dance.

Lup grabs his hands and spins him. “Maggie, my man!” she laughs as she dips him. “I’m gonna steer this joint!”

He shakes his head as she steers him through the dance floor in more spins and flourished arm-movements than entirely necessary, and before the song is even complete, she cuts in on Merle and Lucretia.

She grabs Merle and leads him off, laughing about owing him one and leaves Magnus standing in front of a very affronted looking Lucretia.

“We were having an important conversation,” she mutters.

“About?” Magnus prompts, offering his hand.

“Propagating honeysuckle—I can’t get it to grow right,” she sighs.

“Maybe it’s a good thing Lup cut in on that,” he laughs, leering a bit as Lucretia’s eyes widen just slightly before she bursts into giggles.

“Oh shit, I forgot about that,” she laughs. She moves to take his hand, but then freezes. She recoils, jerking her hand back suddenly like she’d touched something that had burned her.

He can’t help but follow the movement, watching her fingers press against the hollow of her neck. The dress she’s chosen is cut with a V that, while modest, shows the hint of a puckered-edged silvery scar about an inch thick that ends right below her clavicle. Under the light blue mesh of her sleeves, and even where they end, scars stretch across her biceps in ribbons like they’d been clawed into her skin, with raised circles of tissue around them, a splattering of scar tissue over the inside crook of her elbows.

He’d never seen her scars before. He’d known, in the vaguest sense, that she must have _some—_ that surely, her age was not the only mark this plane had left on her. But she’s never worn anything that hasn’t covered her up before: She wears her sleeves to her elbows, always. She wears scarves and high necked robes, collared shirts that she buttons, dresses with dark paneled mesh—even now, her dress disguises them from afar.

He isn’t sure why she’s wearing them open now, why she’s suddenly comfortable with having them out in the open. Maybe she’s always been comfortable with the scars themselves, but not with having other people acknowledge them.

Having her draw back from him hurts in ways he can’t even begin to describe. A fond ache, the sense of loss, want, need—all of these things rise up in him at once. They brush hands in carefully disguised accidents, exchange hands on shoulders and elbows; they knock knees when they eat at diners or when he tries to teach her to knit; their elbows jostle sides and shoulders lean into shoulders when she helps him groom the dogs or walk them or when they wash dishes as Angus does homework in the kitchen. They meet eyes and exchange glances and secret smirks as the others talk.

It’s all subtlety and quiet action—they don’t talk about it, they never have sat and discussed what they were and are and might be. And now, when faced with direct action, she falters. Shyness was never Lucretia before—sometimes she would demure and blush, but she’d always known what she wanted and had reached for him.

And now she drew back.

“You don’t have to dance with me if you don’t want to,” he says softly.

“It’s not that,” she says, shaking her head. He’s startled to see her lip tremble briefly before she bites down on it. She takes his hand gently, fitting their fingers together as his hand hovers for a second against her waist before settling there.

Her hand is so small in his—he’d forgotten, even with everything returned to him, how  _small_  Lucretia is. Her reputation, her demeanor, her carriage speaks of a woman far larger—larger than life, even—than she is. And now, twenty years past what she should be, her hands are slimmer, her fingers thin from age and years upon years of writing and painting, calluses on her thumbs and middle fingers, knobby and rough against his own.

There are pianist fingers, he knows, but there are also Lucretia’s.

They spin in a slow circle and she shakes her head at the distance between them both.

 “Oh, Magnus, geesh,” she sighs. “This is awkward.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s… it’s  _you_ ,” she says, fumbling over the words. “And  _me_ , and this is a wedding…”

He looks down at her and she’s finally looking at him, her eyes wide and shiny as she blinks up at him, her eyelashes dark and damp from the unshed tears. He’s unsure why she’s crying—if it’s because of him, or because of Maureen, or even Julia. He wishes he could be brave enough to ask her.

He squeezes her hand and shakes his head. “It’s just me,” he whispers. “It’s just me, Lucretia.”

“I know,” she says simply, closing her eyes slowly. “I know. That’s why this is so…”  

“It’s all right,” he says. “Just don’t think about it.”

They’re quiet for a moment, and then she sighs slowly, relaxing into his hold. The distance between their bodies closes. Her free hand rests warm against his bicep and a stray curl tickles his chin.

“I… I went to your wedding,” she says gently. “I was ready to sneak in and… help you and Carey and Jeremy fix the score if you hadn’t remembered it right. Just so you could hear it again.”

Maybe a few months ago, this candid reveal would have unsettled him, set him into a spiral of guilt and grief over Julia and over her. But now, it just makes him feel soft against the edge of his sorrows, makes him long for the ability to tip her chin up and press his lips to her forehead to smooth away the lines between her brows as she worries about the impact of her words.

“I know you went,” he says, surprising himself by laughing. “Now that I remember, and you as good as told me back then. Thank you.”

“Yes, I suppose I did,” she murmurs. “It was a very beautiful ceremony.”

They lapse into an awkward silence for a long moment, swaying out of time with the song, caught in their own rhythm.

“Oh, hey, look, Barry’s gonna play a song for them too,” Magnus says once the waltz they had been dancing to ends. “There’s Lup, too! D’you think they’re gonna play their song for—uh, Luce, you alright there?”

Lucretia’s frantically looking over her shoulder, and she tugs away from Magnus just a bit to wave towards Killian and Carey. After a moment of undignified hand waving, she finally catches Killian’s eye.

Killian grins at her and flashes her the _okay_ signal that Magnus has seen her use in training.

Lucretia inhales sharply, and she shakes her head and makes a cutting gesture across her throat, muttering something that sounds like five _nopes_ in a row.

Killian gives her a thumbs up and winks and then turns back to Carey. Lucretia stomps her foot and hisses across the crowd, “ _Killian—!”_  but she’s ignored by everyone but the nearest guests.

“Uh… what’s? Going on?” Magnus asks, half deeply amused by the entire charade and half extremely concerned.

“I’ve been had,” Lucretia says mournfully as Barry begins to play a slow melody on the piano, Lup loose-armed beside him with her violin and bow. “I don’t know what Lup had to do to talk him into this—I _told_ Killian that Lup by herself was  _fine_ that, no, we didn’t need the piano accompaniment and if she had to have the piano, Jeremy could do it, but _noooo_ Killian needed _symbolism_ apparently—I feel like it’s gonna be more than fifteen bucks.”

“I’m… lost. Like so completely lost right now. I honestly do not think there has been a time I was more confused in my entire life.”

“That’s all right,” she says thickly, shaking her head as the piano swells. She puts her hand back on his shoulder and waist, face twisted into something he can’t quite read.

Magnus guides her in a slow spin and she steps closer as they dance. Lup picks up her bow and begins to play a complimentary melody, one that winds in with the piano to form a full song. It almost sounds like a voice.

Lucretia closes her eyes and bites her lip, shaking her head slowly. “I told them not to use the words, and then this! That’s why I just…” her voice shakes and dies, jaw shaking.   

“Lucretia? What’s wrong?”

“Killian asked me for something borrowed too—and… this was one of Johann’s you see,” she says wistfully. Her voice is hoarse and low and she won’t lift her head to look him in the eye. “So it means even more. Killian was there for it, and I just… I  _told_  her they couldn’t use the words…”

“You got married,” he says softly. “To this. This was your song.”

“Mine and Maureen’s, yes,” Lucretia sighs slowly. Her cheeks shine with tears as she looks down at her feet.  

“I’m sorry she died,” Magnus murmurs gently. “I know that… just saying sorry doesn’t… it doesn’t feel like it’s enough, yanno? Especially at times like these… It was hard, to hear mine and Julia’s, and… I’m sorry.”

Lucretia sighs and shakes her head. “It’s okay, Magnus, I know what you mean. I just… I don’t think I’m  _allowed_ to feel this way,” she says softly. “I was supposed to be ruthless.”  

“What?”

“I told you, we were estranged. I didn’t even know how she died until you three filed your report about the Philosopher’s Stone,” Lucretia murmurs. “It’s my dearest wish that… I loved—we loved… each other so much—or, well, I  _hope_  we did? I think we did, at least? I loved her, for certain, I _did_ , but it still didn’t…”

She trails off for a moment, looking somewhere behind Magnus’ shoulder. She shakes her head and clears her throat. “In any case, I hope that this song does better with Carey and Killian than it did with us. It ended so badly for us and I was hesitant to… but Killian insisted and, I… they’re better people than I am. This song will do them better than it did us,” she says firmly. “It will. It means something to them, too.”

She looks over her shoulder at them, smiling fondly as her mouth twitches as she pulls her lips in against her teeth, biting down on them. She lowers her head and turns back to Magnus as the song swells.

“Lucretia, you’re not a bad person because your marriage… was rough,” he says softly. “Look at Merle—he was a shitty husband and a shitty father, and he’s doing… well pretty damn well! His kids still love him,  _we_ still love him, the world still loves him. Carey and Killian love you, and they made the decision to use this song, and… Ruthless, Lucretia?  _No_.”

She shakes her head and smiles, tears streaking down her cheeks. “I don’t want to talk about this, Magnus,” she whispers. “I… I’m sure you understand that, right? Not today.”

She doesn’t talk about it, but if she won’t, how can they move forward? He wants to know more about Maureen Miller, how even in death, she makes Lucretia’s face go soft and how deep the hurt is—Lucretia knew Julia, a little, but his only legacy with this woman was after death, as a rogue of the Bureau, as someone who knew so much of their story but still left Lucretia alone, she still left her, and…

He’s angry with this woman. He’s startled to realize that he’s _angry_ with Maureen Miller, a woman he’d only ever met in a frenzy of aberrant magic and fear—his only impression of her had ever been as Lucas had described her, kind and brilliant and a mother. But she’d been more than that, she’d been more than that even then, she was a wife who had abandoned her partner, who had turned on the person who loved her and ignored the warnings he’s _sure_ Lucretia had given her about the Relics.

He remembers the wild look of anger and shock on Lucretia’s face that Candlenights, and he knows that the Millers, the family she’d built and cared for in the ten years she was alone, had ignored her wishes and her warnings and chosen to leave her behind.

Julia hadn’t chosen to leave him, she never would have. She’d wanted to go with him to Neverwinter, even—she hadn’t chosen to stay behind that time. She’d wanted to stay with him, but Magnus had never seen the Millers on the base, save for that one time that Lucas had made a scene about Fisher. Maureen had to have been alive when they first came to the Bureau, and while he knows that they were fairly pigheaded and self-absorbed back then, but he’d never even heard mention of Lucretia being married, and _Killian_ had attended their wedding. People _knew,_ knew enough to keep silent about it, and Magnus is livid.

Maureen Miller made a choice—estrangement is a choice, making Lucretia wonder if she had been loved at all was a choice.

He knows that it’s more complicated than that, that it has to be, simply because of Lucretia’s situation. But this was a woman who _knew_ about their ship, knew about their journey—she had to, she had to! He recognizes the Siphon as what it was now, the technology in their lab, so much of it had to have been a gift—Lucretia had given the Millers more than she allowed her _family_ to keep with them, and she and hers had still sought out a Relic and…

He is furious.

“Lucretia,” he says softly, pulling her closer as the song peters out, “You  _are_ loved.”

“Depends on who you ask,” she laughs.

He knows she means it to be a joke, to brush off their conversation, to close it back up and put it in the back of their minds so she doesn’t have to think about the hurt, but it tugs on him so hard it makes him want to fall to his knees.

He wishes he could be brave enough to tell her. To pull her close and whisper, over and over,  _you are loved, you are loved, I love you, I love you, I’m here._

But he doesn’t, something like fear stirs in his chest, uncertain and cold and scared she doesn’t, that she won’t love him like she used to, that he won’t be able to compare to the woman that left her in ruins.

“Well, if you ask me,” he says instead, voice trailing off as he grins at her. The words push against his tongue as he spins her as the music picks up to something faster, happier, with clapping and stomping.

He doesn’t finish the thought.


	16. Interference

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lup does what Lup wants! 
> 
> Also I'm going to be going to the MBMBAM show on the 20th so if anyone would like to say hi or anything go let me know on tumblr !

“Lucy, are you in love with Magnus?”

Lucretia manages to both spit champagne out and snort it up her nose at the same time, a feat she hasn’t accomplished since her own wedding years previously when Maureen asked if she thought anyone would notice if they “slipped away for a quick round”.

“Nice,” Lup sniggers, clapping slowly. “Very dignified there, Madame.”

Lucretia mops her face with her napkin, spluttering incoherently. “What even—ugh, why— _Lup_!”

“What?” Lup asks innocently, opening her eyes wide and pouting.

Lucretia shakes her damp napkin at Lup. “That shit don't fly.”

Lup laughs, loud and sharp. “I thought I would try, at least.”

“Absolutely not,” Lucretia says. “I cannot believe you!”

“Why?”

Lup scoots her chair closer to Lucretia, knocking their knees together as she braces her elbows on the table and blinks beatifically up at Lucretia, who dissolves into another round of incoherent noises.

“Your nose is running,” Lup says with a laugh, and Lucretia groans, pressing her napkin back up to her burning nose. “I don’t get why you’re acting like I’ve just revealed something _shocking_.”

“You’re making assumptions based on, well, I’m not sure what,” Lucretia complains as she tries to blow her nose with as much dignity as she can muster. “And while Magnus himself is literally five feet away.”

“Eh. He’s too busy bein’ a dork,” Lup says, gesturing two tables over at Magnus trying to beat both Carey and Killian at arm wrestling. At once.

He’s failing pretty miserably, as both of them are attempting to distract him. Lucretia finds herself smiling, an amused hum rising in her throat. “He does that,” she says.

“ _See_!” Lup crows, smacking the table with the flat of her hand, drawing the attention of some nearby guests.

Lucretia’s face burns, and she waves at Brad, who raises a single eyebrow at her. She shrugs and gestures at Lup as if to say _what can you do?_

“I’m not sure what I’m seeing.”

“Lucretia. You’re so… you two spent the entire reception dancing.”

“As did… oh, everyone else,” Lucretia says dryly. “Are we all in love, together?”

“Shut up,” Lup huffs, grin dimpling her cheeks. She points lazily at Lucretia and jabs her finger in the air. “You two were switching partners up until I set you up, and then you were inseparable. You two are inseparable _anyway_. You’re always with him, you walk his dogs! I was fifty years younger when I looked over and saw you two.”

Lucretia shifts in her chair, fingers worrying the edges of her napkin. She lays it against the table and spreads it flat with her fingertips. “I don’t catch your drift. We’re friendly, yes,” she says slowly. “He’s helped me a great deal with the Bureau, and it _is_ my name on Angus’ forms so, yes, I’m around a fair bit.”

“Wow, for a smart lady you’re awfully dense,” Lup complains.

“Pardon?”

“Lucy, anyone with eyes can _see_.”

“I don’t want a lecture on this from the woman who dithered for thirty years,” Lucretia shoots back dryly. She folds her napkin and smoothes it out again.

“Which is exactly why I can’t stand seeing you dither,” Lup says. “It’s been a year, you two have settled into this pseudo-domestic bliss thing _anyway_ , I don’t see why you’re acting like it’s some government secret that you’re in love with him.”

“Lup,” Lucretia says as sternly as she can manage with her face burning like it is. “I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. I get the… desire… to have all of us right back the way we were. But it’s just not going to happen.”

To Lup’s credit, she actually pauses for a moment before she continues to pout. “I mean, it’d be great? If we all… were as close as we were,” she says slowly. “But that’s not possible the way it was before, but we’re working on it. Just like we’re going to work on you and Magnus.”

“Lup,” Lucretia warns. “Don't. Don't you dare try and play matchmaker.”

“If I succeed, it’s not trying,” Lup says.

“Lup, no.”

“Lucretia.”

“No,” Lucretia repeats. She watches as Magnus struggles against Killian as Carey abandons all pretenses and starts to tickle him.

He shouts and laughs and tries to wrestle Carey into a headlock with one arm, while struggling with Killian with the other. She shakes her head slowly, watching Taako egg Carey on as Angus watches on with concern.

“You should see your face,” Lup says softly.

She’s not teasing or laughing or even leering at her. Lucretia glances over at her, throat tightening at the gentle smile on Lup’s face.

Lup reaches out and touches the back of Lucretia’s hand. “It’s okay, you know. To still love him.”

“Oh, Lup, don’t,” Lucretia says thickly. She scrunches her napkin back up into her palms, twisting it between her fingers. “I just want to—I just want to… I just want a family again, all right?”

“Okay,” Lup says slowly. “Okay. But if I can help—”

“You can’t—”

“Let me know!”

Lucretia sighs and stands from her chair. “Excuse me, I have to go see if I can help him win since the brides are cheating,” she says, patting Lup’s shoulder as she passes.

“ _That’s exactly what I was talking about_!” Lup hisses, throwing her hands out and gesturing towards Lucretia.

“I uh, don’t even want to know, do I?” Barry says as he comes back to the table with Lup’s plate in hand, watching her do an impressive set of jazz hands at Lucretia and Magnus dissolving into snickers as Carey’s ruff slowly lowers after being startled two feet into the air by Lucretia sneaking up behind her and shouting her name as loud as possible.

* * *

“ _So_ … how’s Lucy been?” Lup asks mid-impromptu lunch date. She’d shown up out of nowhere, scared half his dogs, grabbed his arm and spirited him away to a restaurant in Neverwinter.

Magnus looks at her warily, sauce from his sandwich dripping down his hands. He’s a bit unsettled to realize the whole ordeal was just so she could ask him this question.

He takes a large bite to give himself time to think, then sets it down as Lup hands him a stack of napkins.

“What d’you mean? Haven’t you been visiting her?” he asks, mouth still half-full of food. “She canceled on me like, yesterday to go out with you.”

“Don’t sound so morose over it,” Lup laughs.

“I mean, I’m not,” Magnus mutters through another bite of food. They both know it’s not exactly true—but neither of them mention it further.

“I wish you’d close your fucking mouth, for one,” she says, flicking water at him. “But yeah, we see each other a lot. But you know Lucretia. She’s got paperwork out her ass and she’s got all these people lookin’ up to her and she just… she looks tired. Sometimes, like—I go, show up, and she asks me shit, like ‘how’s the reaping going’, ‘have you made Taako’s boyfriend cry’, and all and then she doesn’t really talk about much of her personal life. Or rather, I think the Bureau _is_ her personal life and it’s sort of sad, Magnus.”

“ _Have_ you made Kravitz cry?”

Lup slurps at her drink and shrugs. “Accidentally. That was an accident. Apparently stacked heels in the nose still hurt when you’re technically dead but it was a _really fucking small cave_.” 

Magnus snorts and reaches for one of Lup’s fries. She smacks his hand and then tips half of them onto his plate. “How’d Taako take that one?”

“He laughed for fifteen minutes, thought he was gonna piss himself,” Lup says smugly. “Don’t put ketchup _on_ the fries, Pan on a cracker, Magnus. You’re a heathen.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he laughs. “You love me anyway.”

Lup grins at him, then leans her head onto her folded fingers. “About that. How is Lucretia?” she asks.

“I mean, what makes you think I know more about… Oh,” Magnus stops, feeling silly. Heat crawls into his cheeks and he looks down at his food, scrubbing his thumb against a patch of polish on his nails. “We don’t… We’re not… Lup, we’re _not_.”

“Not what, Magnus?”

Magnus shrugs, continuing to peel away the paint on his fingers before he picks his sandwich back up. It doesn’t taste as good anymore, so he sets it back down and sighs.

“We’re not involved anymore, Lup, if that’s what this whole excursion was about, we’re not dating,” he says slowly. His lunch sits heavy in his stomach and he swallows against the taste in his mouth. “We… we’re not, I don’t think we’re gonna.”

“What? No, you two visit, like… all the time. And why, why not? You two were the crew’s lil’ baby birds, like, she was so happy back then, and she seems happiest when she’s with you—”

“Lup, stop,” he says quietly, throat tight. He can’t bring himself to look at her. He still remembers how angry she’d been with him when she thought he was going to take advantage of Lucretia being upset and feeling weak, how wary she’d been of their relationship.

“I just thought that maybe you two had—you’d worked it out, especially since like… I mean, you danced with her the whole rest of the wedding,” she says awkwardly. “She looks so lonely sometimes, Magnus, don’t you see it when you see her? Don’t you _see_ her?”

He closes his eyes and presses his fingers to his forehead. He feels weary, like all of his years have suddenly caught up to him. “Lup, we… we’re sort of finished—don’t you think what she did finished us off?”

“I don’t know,” Lup says. “I wasn’t… Around for the end, yanno? To me? What I saw… You all fell apart it looked like, and… Magnus, three months? I left in the _spring_ , and it looked like it was late summer, what we were told and… I just… She, what we were shown, what the world saw… She didn’t do it because she didn’t love you. Us. She… She’s lost so much, we all have, and, Magnus you two looked so happy at the wedding.”  

“She’s not alone anymore, we visit, we’re friends, that’s… That’s all she wants, Lup,” Magnus murmurs.

Lup makes a noncommittal noise and slurps down more of her drink. She begins to pick at her fries. “I… you… you forgave her, right?” she asks.

“That’s not why, Lup. Of course I did,” he sighs. He looks out at the crowds on the streets of Neverwinter. It’s weird, being able to come and go here so freely since Avi and Killian will always give him free rides when Lup’s not around to rip holes in the very fabric of reality. The ten day trip from Raven’s Roost is now minutes, and he can pop in and out whenever he wants. So much has changed, but the crowds are just as thick, just as easy to watch pass by, as they always were. Somewhere in this town—three streets and two blocks away—is Lucretia’s library. Is her little one-room apartment. She’s probably there now, he could go and see her…

Ten days ride to Raven’s Roost, a ten minute walk to Lucretia. Both feel like they’re centuries away.

 “I got married, Lup. During that ten years we were all… not ourselves. Only, only I felt more like me then than I do now. _Lucretia_ got married—Maureen Miller only died about a year and a half ago. It’s not fair to her to be doing this.”

“I know you did; she did,” she murmurs. “I just, I _get_ that Lucy made everyone forget, but… I just, I can’t  imagine not… maybe I’m too used to me and Barry. You love one person like that, and that’s it—never anything more. That’s _it._ He said he loved me even when he forgot, that he _felt_ it and… Remembering you and her, back then, I—I guess, maybe I thought it would be like that for you. It’s not fair to think that way, is it?”

“I thought it was like that for me and Julia,” Magnus confesses absently. “That I was done since she died.”

Lup fiddles with a fry and sighs. “Hey, Mags… you know, Kravitz… found your wife.”

“Yeah,” Magnus says slowly. “Yeah, I know. Why?”

Lup squirms uncomfortably. “I just… I know it’s not fair. It’s not, and I’m so sorry, but… Have you talked to Lucretia about it all?”

“No.”

“Are you… gonna?”

“I don’t know,” Magnus sighs. “I… always let her take the lead on that, really.”

Lup chews on her straw and blows bubbles into her drink. “You said thought,” she says slowly. “That you _thought_ you were done after your wife?”

“Yeah… yeah I did.”

“Past tense.”

He sighs slowly. “Yeah, past tense. Not like I don't love Julia, I just. Maybe people can love in more than one sort of way, yanno?”

Lup nods. “So… you're in love with Lucretia still?”

“Again?”

“What do you wanna do about it?”

Magnus sighs heavily, and covers his eyes with his hand for a second. There’s been an idea that’s been nagging at the back of his mind for a few months now, pestering him when he sees how Lucretia’s taken to Johann, to the other dogs.

“Well… I think a dog would do Lucretia some good.”

Lup inhales for three whole seconds and Magnus knows he’s fucked. But she just sighs and puts her head in her hands and shakes her head. “Whatever you think’s for the best, m’dude, but fuck me if that’s not… sappy as shit?”

Not the answer he was expecting, but it’s close enough to the Lup seal of approval to know it’s a decent idea.


	17. Gifts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I watched so many samoyed puppy videos for this fic like, and it only took 17 chapters to get to the entire reason I wanted to write this thing: TO GIVE LUCRETIA A PUPPY  
> Geesh. 
> 
> Go watch puppy videos.

In the end, it takes Magnus a few months to actually _act_ on the idea. He has to finish up his training with Avery at the shelter so he can train the theoretical dog himself—he could probably describe Lucretia’s various neuroses with enough detail that Avery could train a dog for her (she forgets to eat, to take her meds, she has nightmares, she loses time, she forgets her surroundings, she works far, far, far too much), but he wants to do it himself. He knows she wouldn’t appreciate him telling anyone these things, even if it were to help her.

He shakes his coat off and shrugs it over his arm, waving at Avery.

“Magnus, how about I just give you a job here, so you’ll stop showing up to poach time off of my volunteers,” Avery laughs, reaching out to high five Magnus.

“No, I’m actually here about some dogs,” he says.

“Again? Shit, you’re gonna adopt us out of business dude.”

“I want to find a dog that would be a good match for a friend of mine, um, without letting her know I’m getting her one,” Magnus tells Avery uncertainly. “She’s um… She’s an elegant lady, but a goofball, so a playful breed?”

Avery looks at Magnus with a brow raised. “You should probably _tell_ your wife before you bring her home a puppy; it’s like if you brought a baby home?”

 “No!” he says forcefully, then immediately feels the sink of guilt for it. There wasn’t any _need_ to protest so loudly, but after his lunch with Lup, he’s been finding himself more and more self-conscious about it all. He flushes scarlet and drums his fingers against the counter, giving an awkward chuckle.

“Nope, um, nuh-uh, that’s uh, she’s,” he stammers, scratching his chin. “She’s uh, not my _wife_. Or girlfriend, uh, well. Fuck. It’s complicated?  And uh she’s um… It’s just that, well.  She needs a dog that’s gonna get her out and about, but not an aggressive breed? But that’s gonna, like, Johann will sing and she thinks it’s funny. She likes some of the goofy ones, but she’s really taken to Noelle and Johann, and they’re smart—she’s smart! She’s really smart, and um. I want a smarter breed, so, um. Elegant and smart, but not morose, she needs to laugh more.”

Avery leans against the counter, mouth turning up in amusement. “So… your mistress?”

Magnus snorts through his nose. “Definitely absolutely not! A good, good friend! Who needs a friend,” he says firmly. “She needs someone to focus on instead of herself—or, or work. So maybe a dog that needs a bit more attention, like, maybe grooming-wise. But that’s a good enough temperament to let her hug on it and stuff. I’m… gonna train it up for her? Like Johann.”

“Do you want another deerhound?” she asks, “We don’t have any more of those guys up for adoption right now. We’re pretty slim on litters actually, got a lot of older dogs, though.”

“I want a puppy for her; I can wait if there’s nobody up for adoption,” Magnus says softly, “But I’ll take home some of your old boys!”

Avery laughs and shakes her head, “No, don’t feel the need—we have a group of kids coming by this afternoon. They should all be rehomed. But, litter wise, we have…”

She pages through her notepad, and then grins. “Hey, wanna see our resident clouds? Sam brought them in to be trained up today; he’s a good breeder, so they’re all healthy and up for adoption. I think you’re gonna like ‘em. Sounds right what you need for your lady friend who’s _totally_ not your girlfriend but is definitely about to get a courting gift of one puppy.”

Magnus leaves with the adoption papers for one female Samoyed puppy and an arranged time to pick her up. He’s on his Stone of Farspeech as soon as he gets home, Johann nudging at his knees for food.

“Hey, Lucretia, it’s Magnus—um, next week, can you come on down, uh, midweek? I’ve got some uh, some new puppies I want you to meet!”

* * *

Lucretia does not see puppies.

The usual suspects come to crowd around her when she lets herself into Magnus’ cabin, barking and jumping until she points sharply at the floor and gives their sit command to give her a chance to shrug out of her coat and stamp the crust of ice and snow off of her boots.

“Magnus?” she calls, unwinding her scarf from her neck. “It’s me, are you home?”

It’s not unusual to show up at his home and him not be there—sometimes he runs late on errands; sometimes he gets called away by the residents of Raven’s Roost; sometimes he’s had to go and walk the dogs. Lup’s had a field day over it ever since she made the mistake of unearthing the spare key from its hiding spot and letting them both in to prep for a family dinner, but it’s nothing special. She’s pretty sure the others know where it is, too.

Lup can leer and insist all she wants, but that doesn’t mean that it _means_ anything to Magnus, and honestly, Lucretia doesn’t mind if their friendship is nothing particularly special.

She treasures the time they spend together. It’s comforting and nostalgic and Magnus doesn’t pry or ask too many questions when all she’s good for is staring into the fire for hours on end. He just settles beside her, like he used to, his back against her shins as he works on a carving, the more rambunctious dogs let out into the heavily fenced and built up garden to play or put into their kennel room so it’s just her, Magnus, and Johann. Sometimes, she can close her eyes and she’s twenty four again, young and naïve of what she would become, comforted just by the press of Magnus’ broad back against her legs and the knowledge that no matter what their cycles brought, what the Hunger brought, she would have the constant company of his presence.

But then she opens her eyes and she is so much older and filled with an ache that has no words. She goes home to an empty bed and an entire multiverse that knows, yet fails to recognize, the depths of her ruthlessness.

Lup has made her realize that she shouldn’t really keep seeing Magnus like this; she’d thought that she’d laid that love to rest. She’d loved again, like Magnus, during their time apart, and though Maureen is only barely gone, she feels the same breathless tug towards him that she did decades and decades ago.

She _knows_ that she needs to stop this, that she needs to let it go, but she still finds new reasons to pop in to visit Magnus in Raven’s Roost. New blueprints to ask his opinion of, odds and ends that need fixing, small requests for things in the library, the story that she’s recording what they did in the interim to add to a volume about the Day of Story and Song that Sterling’s commissioned for the library, new projects that need site visits that she doesn’t want to go alone on. Lunch. Dinner. Brunch. Soccer games, award nights. Fantasy Uno games.

She’s running out of excuses, though. 

So when he called her to check out a new batch of puppies, she thought nothing of it. She relished the invitation and agreed immediately and excitedly. She's found herself just as fond of Magnus' dogs as she is of Magnus himself.

But she sees no puppies.

She kneels in front of Johann, rubbing his head affectionately. “Hey Johann, where's your rowdy boy?”

If she expected any answer other than a nudge with his nose so she'd get on with it and scratch behind his ears, she doesn't get it. She gives Johann the attention he wants for a second before rising to her feet.

She walks through the entry way and sticks her head into the kitchen. No Magnus, no puppies. She goes to the door in the kitchen to the backyard.

Nothing. A few of the dogs rush past in a veritable tsunami of paws and fur, and she’s almost knocked back by their enthusiasm for a cracked-open door. “Hey, you—behave you assholes,” she laughs, brushing dog fur off of her pants.

One of the smaller dogs flops into the thin coat of snow and goes scrunching off; an older retriever delicately puts a paw off of the porch and yanks it back, tail drooping as it wanders back to her.

“Yeah, didn’t think that through, didja?” she murmurs, giving it an affectionate pat as they both retreat into the kitchen.

She makes her way into the living room, where Johann is sitting at the base of the stairs, tail thumping as he looks up them.

“Is he up there, huh?” she murmurs, kneeling next to Johann. “I haven’t been up there, why don’t you go get him? Go get your rowdy boy, Johann. I’ll sneak you treats?”

Johann thumps his tail against the floor a few times before starting to bark, starling Lucretia. She hears a thud, and the scrabble of paws against wood floor, and Magnus’ voice shouting something indistinct.

“I mean, that’s one way to get his attention, sure,” she mumbles, right before she’s barreled over by a speeding white puppy.

“No, wait, you—come back here your new mom is—shit! Hello! Lucretia! I didn’t hear you come in—”

“I’m being mauled by a tribble!” Lucretia protests as the puppy clambers over her stomach to her face, licking her enthusiastically. She tries to push it off while keeping her glasses on, but it shoves itself against her face, entire body swaying as its tail fans back and forth.

“No, she’s just saying hi, up y’get,” he says, scooping the wriggling dog off of Lucretia’s shoulders.

He holds the dog up to his face and says, “You don’t do that, no.” The puppy yips and licks at his face, then chews on his chin. He laughs and settles the dog in his arms, leaning away as it continues to lick and nip at his jaw.

“What is that?” Lucretia grumbles, rubbing her sleeve over her face. “An escaped chaos elemental?”

Magnus pouts over at her as the puppy yips and continues to squirm in his arms; she notices a ribbon trailing off of his sleeve, and a matching navy collar on the puppy’s neck.

“Aw, Luce, be nice to her, she’s just a baby,” he complains.

Lucretia sits upright, dusting her sweater off before she settles on the second stair by Magnus’ feet. “She’s… enthusiastic.”

“It’s her second day here, and she’s _very_ excited to see a people.”

“A person.”

“ _People_.”

“Oh boy,” Lucretia sighs. “Are there more? God, how do you handle it?”

Magnus’ frown deepens into something uncertain. “Um, no, it’s just her.  Just—just the one! She’s a little rambunctious but she’s not finished puppy school yet, I have to take her back to the training center and then she gets another round from me, and she just needs to play a bit, that’s all.”

He sets her down and she immediately starts running circles around Johann, who sits primly at Lucretia’s feet as if to show off how a properly trained dog behaves. It doesn’t seem to deter the white puppy’s enthusiasm, who starts bouncing as Magnus produces a toy from his pocket. He tosses it gently across the room and she springs after it.

“Shit, that thing has airtime,” Lucretia laughs. She pats the stairs next to her, raising an eyebrow up at Magnus.

“She does,” he laughs, settling beside her, his knee knocking playfully into hers. He clasps his hands between his knees, nodding towards her as the dog brings the toy back.

“She have a name, Magnus?” Lucretia asks as she ruffles the dog’s fur as the slobber-coated toy gets dropped at her feet. She picks it up gingerly, and tosses it.

“No, I was gonna let her owner name her,” Magus says cagily.

Lucretia reaches over and wipes her dog-spit covered hand on his pants. They’re corduroy and soft at the knee and she resists the urge to pet over it, to grip his thigh, to lean into the press of his shoulder against hers. “And when are they showing up?”

“…do you like her?” Magnus asks in lieu of answering.

Lucretia watches as Johann wanders over to snap up the toy, sending the little puppy into a frenzy of hopping and whines.

“Johann, play nice,” she calls, snickering. “Bring it here, boy.”

Johann trots over and settles by Magnus’ feet, ignoring the puppy as she comes to Lucretia. Lucretia rubs her fingers over the dog’s ears, feeling silky fur.

“It’s… well, if you were to anthropomorphize the chaos and headaches you three caused me last year, I think it would look a little like this,” she chuckles.

“Oh,” Magnus says quietly, fidgeting with his nails.

“Oh, don’t look like that, I’m sure whomever’s coming to pick her up will understand she’s not fully trained,” Lucretia says softly, feeling guilty. She pats his knee awkwardly, biting her lip. “…Sorry, I was teasing. She’s cute.”

“She’s yours,” Magnus mumbles, cheeks turning pink. “She um, I got her for you.”

“Oh,” Lucretia echoes, looking down at the puppy, who looks back at her with wide eyes, toy in mouth. “Oh dear, Magnus… She’s so, I don’t…”

“I was um… going to train her to not run off the moon,” he offers, rubbing the back of his neck. “And like… I was going to train her up like Johann. I should have waited, I guess, to introduce you… but…”

His voice trails off and Lucretia can’t bring herself to speak for a long moment. She just tosses the toy again, sending the puppy scrabbling off.

She swallows hard, face hot. “Like… Johann,” she repeats. Her hands shake. “You think… you think I need a service dog—”

She meant for it to come out a question, but her voice cracks and trembles and it sounds like an accusation.

“I mean… yes? She’s not just for that, I thought maybe you’d like the company, but yeah. A therapy dog could be a thing that I think you may benefit from,” Magnus says uncomfortably. “It… I shouldn’t have… decided for you, I’m sorry. I really should have asked.”  

She licks her lips and swallows again, her mouth dry. “I,” she starts, then pauses. “Of all the choices you could have taken from me, I think this is the most benign. Oh, Magnus, I travel and… so many new people, and… I just…”

“I talked it over with Avery—the lady who runs the shelter I get the foster dogs from; they breed some too, but mostly it’s just if a dog shows up pregnant, they let them have the litter and like, breeders will show their dogs there and have them trained—and um. I told her about you? That you were busy and stuff, and Samoyeds are really friendly especially if they’re socialized young and they’re smart too, and elegant and, um. I just thought. For when you’re not here, when I’m not around, or if no one else is there, you could… just have somebody.”

“And you… you got this dog, just… just for me?” Lucretia asks, watching as the puppy shakes the toy in her mouth.

Magnus nods. “Yeah, this one, I haven’t fostered any of this breed before, so. This one is all yours, Lucy.”

“And… if… I can’t, if I don’t—”

“I mean, I’ll keep her,” Magnus says with a shrug, voice strained. “I can. If you don’t want her.”

“You got me a dog?” Lucretia repeats, feeling her lips tremble. “Just for _me_? Specifically… you went in, just for me? This isn’t…”

“I didn’t impulse adopt a dog, no. I… I thought about it and I’ve been worrying about you, Lucretia,” Magnus says gently, reaching out to take her hand in his. “I know you’re still, you still… it’s been better since we went with you, but I know you’re still… You said you have troubles sleeping still. I just…”

He trails off and shrugs a bit helplessly. 

“Like, Johann will remind me if I’ve not gone to bed on time, and he’ll get me out if I’m not getting up when I’m supposed to—not like, oh sleeping, but if… if I’m just laying there, you know? And sometimes, well… sometimes it’s hard to get in the shower or make breakfast or go out on a jog, and he makes me do it. I can train her to do that stuff and, you’ve seen how Johann will nudge you out of an episode… it helps having something tangible to focus on, like brushing his coat or taking him on a walk. And she can check the room, if it’s something you’re scared of or she can, um… if… if you think there’s someone in the room with you, and you can’t tell if they’re really there. Uh. Watch. Johann, go say hi,” he says, pointing towards the corner of the room.

Johann looks up, and then trots to the corner and sniffs. He comes back to Magnus and sits at his feet, whining. Magnus grins and ruffles his ears. “Good boy. Now, go say hi,” he says again, and points to Lucretia.

Johann barks.

“Good boy,” Lucretia murmurs, reaching out to pet him. “Magnus, do… you…?”

“Not often, no,” he says quietly, shaking his head. “It was really bad right after everything happened, and… all of it, going back and forth and… As I settled back in, got my head back on after everything, it’s gotten better. I think I’ve only had to use him like that once? It’s just something he knows how to do if I need him to since he got trained across the board instead of just for what I needed.”

Lucretia swallows back the lump in her throat. “Magnus, I'm…”

He looks over at her and pats her hand between his own. “I know,” he says. “You don’t need to keep being sorry.”

The puppy ambles her way back to them and presses her paws to Lucretia’s shins. She drags her fingers from between Magnus’ and picks her up, holding her briefly at arms’ length to scrutinize the pup. She’s already pretty large, and round at that, with a black nose and eyes and it looks like the puppy is grinning at her, lolling her tongue out as she yips and wiggles.

“You said she's friendly?”

“Oh, absolutely. The breed’s very sociable and she’ll be tolerant of physical affection— she'll let you cuddle on her and stuff,” Magnus says excitedly.

Lucretia lets the puppy get settled into her lap, finally something resembling calm (although her fingers keep getting slobbered on).

“And she _won't_ run off the moon base? For serious?”

“Nope!”

Lucretia sighs softly, shaking her head. “She looks like a muffler, Magnus.”

“I was thinking bear, but okay.”

“You _always_ think bears,” she mumbles. She lays her head on his arm without thinking, rubbing her fingers through the thick fur of the dog’s neck. Heat seeps through Magnus’ shirt, soft and flannel and she closes her eyes for a brief second.

She doesn’t even register the gesture as strange at first—they’re huddled together on the stairs, pressed shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh, and it just felt so natural. It’s the lack of movement from Magnus himself that shakes Lucretia to her senses. His arm tenses underneath her cheek as he grips his hands tighter, and  when she draws back, his jaw is tightly clenched, eyes focused at something across the room.

She closes her eyes against the sudden ache in her chest, throat clenching itself shut. She feels her face grow unnaturally hot. Quietly, she swears at Lup for making her feel so awkward and self-conscious about it all.  

“…sorry,” she says.

“It’s… yeah,” Magnus mumbles, his cheeks are pink and he leans back against the stairs, breaking their point of contact.  “Don’t be sorry,” he says with a soft laugh.

She wants to shake for how cold she feels now that he’s shifted away—she chased him away just by forgetting herself. It had felt so natural to her to do it—they were talking, they were joking, and he was so close to her side. But it’s always like this; it’s always like this, every time they meet. She stares a little too long, says something a little too soft or too close to how they were, and he always jolts out of himself, like he’s shaking himself up out of a trance. She ruins it every time, just by pushing just a little, by letting herself relax and enjoy their time.

She’s so much more aware of how much she does it, too. She’d gotten so used to touching, to reaching out for Magnus’ elbow or his hand, to jostling and bumping and all sorts of little things that connect them that she has to restrain herself now.

Ever since the wedding, he’s been… Not distant. But less tactile with her, and she feels the change so keenly it hurts. He’s probably realized the way she feels for him, and is too polite to tell her to cut it out. Sometimes, she entertains the idea of asking him to hold her—not a quick hug, but to wrap her up in his arms and keep her there. Just once, just so she can feel him again, touch him, sink against his warmth and feel the change of his body against the way hers is now. But she can’t be that bold anymore. And she would never want to let go. It’s not fair to either of them. 

He probably just doesn’t want to be around her, and she’s made it worse by her need for skinship. Lup said she could see Lucretia’s feelings as plain as day—Lucretia wonders if that means that Magnus can see them. For as carefree and lackadaisical as he may seem—as he presents himself—Magnus is a man of his word, of his honor, and… he probably feels a sense of duty to her. It’s fallen to him by default, to keep up with her, probably.

She strokes the puppy slowly, giving her back the toy so she can chew on it, her curled little tail wiggling back and forth.

He got her a dog, and… that’s something. That means something, surely, but she also wonders if maybe he got her a dog to take care of her, so… so he wouldn’t have to. There’s a reason that he pointed out that the breed tolerates physical affection. He must know how badly she craves it—must realize that she wants it from him.

She wants to refuse the dog on principal. She’s not so broken that she needs a caretaker. She eats when she realizes she’s hungry. Sleeps when there’s not so many thoughts in her head that she can’t sit still or the aches in her fingers and knees and wrists aren’t keeping her up. She takes her medicine dutifully. She’s still up and about and that’s all that needs to be asked of her, really.

She wants to refuse the dog because she’s not so piteous that she’ll take the comfort of an animal that a former lover gave her because it’s obvious she’s lonely. But… she _is_ lonely.

Despite Lup, despite Carey, Killian, Merle, Angus, and all the others, she’s still lonely. She looks forward to coming to see Magnus more than she should, takes more delight in it than she deserves to.

“You said she’s not done being trained?” she asks, awkward and desperate to break the silence between them. She wishes he would lean back towards her.

He scoots back further instead, whistling for Johann as he leans back onto his elbows so the dog can scramble up into his lap. “Yeah, she’s gonna have to stay here for a bit if you take her, but you’d need to, um… Well since she’d be yours if you took her, you need to be around for the training to take? So she recognizes you as her handler.”

The dog is cute. So is Magnus. She sighs softly.

“…I think her name will be… muff isn’t right, neither is muffler… Muffin, her name is Muffin,” she muses, gently wrestling the toy from the puppy’s mouth. “Muffin’s your name, you little butt.”


	18. Truths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna write a few notes up on this and post it, so if there's anything specific! Let me know (while I'm not forgetting cookies in the oven?). Same as last time, I'm gonna be at the Atlanta MBMBAM show this Friday, shout at me if you wanna!  
> Edit: http://bluecoloreddreams.tumblr.com/post/166520569729 THERE WE ARE

“He got me a dog,” Lucretia hisses into her stone once the reality of the situation had finally, finally sunk in. It took a few visits with her actual flesh and fur puppy to actually realize that Muffin was not some prank Magnus was pulling on her. “A dog! Does—does that mean something?”

“ _Magnus got you a **dog**_?”

Lup’s voice over the stone is tinny and fuzzy, but her interest is pointed.

“A _puppy_. Her name is Muffin, and she’s really cute. She’s like, super fat and fuzzy and she’s got this lil’ floofy tail that curls in, and—don’t distract me! Magnus got me a _dog_ and I’m—he’s training it to be a service dog,” she sighs, cutting herself off. She looks at the ceiling of her apartment, chewing her lip as she regards the hanging plants and curls of honeysuckle Merle had given her.

“That’s perfunctory, right? It doesn’t mean anything other than he thinks I’m a mess.”

“ _Honey, you two have this weird courting thing where he gives you something really useful—_ ”

Lup’s voice grows stronger, then doubles, a strange echo as a shimmering line of light tears itself open in Lucretia’s apartment in Neverwinter. Lup’s body unfolds from a glittering ball of energy, her hair and red robe billowing out as she shakes herself into her corporeal form. She holds her stone between her fingers as she talks, the few second’s of delay punctuating her words.

“—instead of saying he’s hopelessly in love.”

She thumbs the sigil on her stone and tucks it into her robes, looking excitedly around the room. “Where’s this love dog?”

“He’s got her, she’s still too young to come out with me,” Lucretia sighs. “He’s training her and she has puppy school.”

“Fuck, that’s cute.”

“She’s not a love dog,” Lucretia complains.

“She’s a love dog,” Lup says. “Like, look! He made you shelves that first time, what a goober. And then, oh man, after the Arcaneum, remember—”

Lucretia feels her face turn warm and she coughs softly. “Yes. I get it, Lup—”

“Handmade paper, like. Shit, I remember him and Barry agonizing over getting it right so Magnus could apologize. And all those ducks! And that fox locket that had the pocket dimension built in for your journals? I think now that Taako remembers, Magnus is still paying that off!”

She covers her face and shakes her head, her neck just as hot as her face. “Nope! Stop, let’s not go there—”

“Not like you aren’t just as bad, what with all _your_ presents.”

“No, no,” Lucretia mumbles. “We can stop this now!”

“I’ve seen you take him tea and towels and cups and plates this past year. And then before, it was whetstones and soaps and knives and wood from every plane and _so many bears_ ,” Lup lists. “The lingerie—”

“ _No_ , we are not!” Lucretia snaps, shooting up to cover Lup’s mouth with her hand. Lup promptly licks her hand, slobbering on it when Lucretia doesn’t move her palm.

“Disgusting,” Lucretia says, unceremoniously wiping her hand across Lup’s breasts.

“Get used to it, because you have a love dog!”

“It’s not a love dog,” Lucretia shouts over Lup chanting the words at her. “He isn’t in love with—Lup, do you hear me, _Magnus isn’t in love with me_!”

Lup startles at the force and volume of Lucretia’s words. “Luce,” she says softly, “Geesh. Wow.”

Lucretia twists her fingers together tightly at her stomach, looking away. “He’s not, it’s not—I’m sorry I shouted. But really, it’s not like that. He got me a dog because he thinks I need a service dog, okay, it’s not because he loves me or anything. I… don’t let me read into it, it’s too hard if I do, okay?”

Lup touches her hands softly, shaking her head. “Lucy, Lucretia, you need to—”

There’s a pop of magic that cuts her off, Lucretia’s front door swinging open with a bang that makes both of them jump and reach out in casting position, only to find one red-faced Lucas Miller at the door.

“Lucas!” Lucretia scolds, dropping the shimmering white barrier that had sprung up around her and Lup’s feet. “Knock!”

“Shit, Nerdlord, do you break in everywhere?” Lup snaps. She clenches her fist around the fire that had blossomed in her fingers at the surprise.

“I came to return these,” Lucas says, shaking a small box in Lucretia’s direction. “They said you weren’t going to be at the Bureau for a few days.”

“Oh, well, thank you—I have some things I have to do for the library, so yes, I’m out of the office,” Lucretia says slowly, blinking in bemusement at Lucas.

She steps forward and gingerly takes the box, peering inside. Some of Maureen’s journals rest nestled in a silk scarf next to a jewelry box, a chatelaine and an ornate silver fountain pen rattle as Lucretia shifts through the contents, throat tight.

“It’s the last of the records, and some more of your letters. I found it at—well. Yours,” he mutters, his cheeks darkening as he scowls at the box in Lucretia’s hands. 

“Thank you,” Lucretia murmurs. “While you’re around, would you like—”

“How could you even be worrying about who is or isn’t in love with you?” he blurts out. “Mom—mom’s only been—how could you, it’s two—it’s two years _today_ , and you’re fussing about someone not being in love with _you_?”

Lucretia flinches back, body going cold. “I… I didn’t know it… Lucas, I didn’t know that was today,” she says. “I—I don’t even know where you buried her.”

“Because you’re like this! You never, you didn’t even love her, really, did you?” he demands. “You were like this after she died—carrying on like I didn’t even, like I hadn’t said anything, _please wait Lucas, let me finish this meeting, I am so sorry_. You don’t care! You don’t deserve to know!”

Lup makes a sound of displeasure behind Lucretia, but Lucretia just shakes her head at both of them.

“Lucas,” Lucretia says. “I told you then, and I’ve _kept_ telling you, I love Maureen dearly, I love you—and I am so sorry. I _am_ so sorry; I never wanted any of it to happen like it did.”

“I don’t believe you—I can’t believe you!” Lucas snaps. “Like anyone could really—like he could fall in love with you after what you did! Like _anyone_ could— I bet they don’t even know! I bet you never told them! The only reason anyone is still even around you is because you never told them what you _did,_ you’re just playing the martyr all over again!”

Lup stomps forward and prods Lucas in the chest. “I get that you’re a momma’s boy, Nerdlord, but we know everything, and it’s none of your business,” she snarls.

“The both of you! _Enough_!” Lucretia shouts. “Lup, back down. Lucas… Lucas, why did you come here?”

She’s so tired of this. She’d done her best to leave him be, because his staunch refusal to even entertain the thought of forgiving her is too painful to even address.

“I told you,” he starts, but Lucretia shakes her head and holds up her hand.

“Did you come _just_ to be nasty to me? Lucas,” she sighs. “Lucas, please just go. I’m… Thank you for returning the last of Maureen and my things to me. I wish… I wish you had trusted me with mourning her,” she says. “I would have spent the day with you if you had—we could have… we didn’t have to grieve alone back then. Now, if you’ll… if you’ll leave.”

“Bye then, see you at the PTA meetings,” Lucas says with as much venom as he can muster, but he sounds just as tired as Lucretia feels.

Lup is quiet for a long moment after the door slams shut behind him. “Does he… do that often?”

“What? Break into my rooms while people are around, kick up a fuss, then leave just as abruptly?” Lucretia asks dryly. She sits at her desk, body feeling too heavy to even support her sitting up. “Yes, that’s sort of his thing. His brand, if you will.”

“You can’t let him do that, Lucretia,” Lup says. “You can’t let him run over you like that—”

“He’s family,” Lucretia murmurs. “He’s my… once, he was a good friend. The things he says… they’re not untrue.”

“Doesn’t make it right,” Lup mutters.

“I set him off by apologizing,” Lucretia sighs. “He’s never going to forgive me, so…”

“So you let him treat you like that? No. Hell no. Forgiveness doesn’t mean shit, Lucretia,” Lup says, reaching out to tip Lucretia’s chin.  “I know you want him to forgive you, but it won’t mean anything if you don’t forgive yourself.”

“I—”

“Do you think you did the right thing?”

Lucretia blinks up at Lup rapidly, face warm. “I—I did what was necessary. It wasn’t _right_ , but I thought, I hoped it would balance out in the end. I will always… There are things that I regret, but I—this, all this, I don’t think would have been possible,” she stammers, bewildered. “I don’t think it’s a matter of forgiving myself, because I won’t? I don’t, I know I did wrong?” 

Lup sighs, unsatisfied by the answer. She knows better than to press it at the moment. “What was he talking about Lucretia?”

“Ah… Maureen and I… we have… What did Taako and Merle tell you about Magnus and Wonderland?”

“He had to forget the dickwad governor he fought,” Lup says, studying Lucretia’s face. “Why?”

“Maureen’s husband died because of that dickwad governor,” she spits out. The anger at Kalen is old, but doubled, tripled, quadrupled—so many of the people she loved had been touched by his hands for him to go free. She’s furious, too, that she put Magnus in a position where he had to forfeit his knowledge; she is grateful that Lup tore Edward into pieces, ripped him apart and let him die. She still has nightmares of Wonderland and knows her friends do too—knowing that the gamemakers suffered is a small measure of comfort.

“The governor, Kalen, he—he arranged it so that Lucian went into a situation where he could not come out alive. He made a smear campaign against the Miller name, dismantled their laboratory. Kalen  threatened Lucas, he chased Maureen out of her home and put her in hiding and she was _terrified_ of him, Lup.  She would go into town—the little village we went to, Penhallow— and she would keep looking over her shoulder. She had nightmares and, and, she worried so much that he would find her. I didn’t know until later that there was a Relic involved, that this was because of the Relic War, but honestly, that doesn’t fucking matter, he _terrified_ Maureen and Lucas, and…”

Lucretia inhales sharply and makes herself take a few measured steps to her desk, setting the box down carefully. She balls her fists up and shakes her head.

“There was a shadow government movement to oust Kalen,” she says softly.

She lets the words hang in the air—instead they fall to the ground like water from a bucket. Hard, fast, and it soaks the air until all she can do is pour more out, inundate the small apartment with the truth of it. She has never, never spoke of this before. She and Maureen closed the matter and promised they would turn their eyes from their guilt.

They let it rot, they let it fester, and this was the first cut that poisoned their blood. This was the first strike that finally felled them.

And now, this would be what would end her small family.  

“The… the Sterling family and their Council didn’t want to overtly depose him, so when Magnus and Julia started the rebellion in Raven’s Roost, they… They inserted their forces into the ones in Raven’s Roost. One of Maureen’s militia friends contacted her and... She didn’t want to, but…”

“You convinced her to help,” Lup says.

“I convinced her to help,” Lucretia agrees. She inhales shakily, feeling sick. She’s dreaded this revelation for over a year—s he’s dreamed of it, mouthed the words, wrote the words over and over, but she has never been able to bear speaking them. She’ll be on the edge of it—when they were helping Magnus rebuild, there was a moment that would have been good, where she should have told him. But he’d smiled at her and she could not bear taking that smile from him.

She knows how much this will hurt him, she knows because she has been on the other side of that hurt— _why, oh why couldn’t they have saved Maureen? How could they let her go, how could they let Lucas die?—_ and she can’t bear tearing down the fragile walls of a life he’s rebuilt. She loves him too much to hurt him.

She loves him too much to bear his reaction.

“I begged her to trust me, that Magnus was a good man and the rebellion was real and in good hands, and so we… We fought. We made codes and ciphers for Magnus’ group, helped them chart out ways that the messages, and later food and supplies, could be delivered. And, for one week, we went to Neverwinter, and we designed… We made weapons,” she whispers. She grips her skirt in her hands and sinks into her desk chair, staring down at her hands and knees.

“We were duped,” she whispers. “Someone was a spy, or that there never really was any _real_ dedication to removing Kalen. We were tricked and… well, you know the rest.”

“ _Shit_ ,” Lup breathes. 


	19. History

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh mobile formatting, how I hate you.

“Run that through one more time,” Lup says, gesturing at Lucretia with her spoon. She’d stopped Lucretia and wouldn’t let her continue until she’d finished two perfect ramekins of lava cake, made half with magic and half with Lucretia’s meager groceries.

  
Lucretia chews on her spoon for a moment before prodding at her cake slowly. “Captain Bain came one day and told Maureen about the rebellion, and I’d just come from Raven’s Roost so I knew it was real. I had uh, gone to pick up something I’d commissioned for Maureen as a courting gift? Don't laugh! Anyway. I got her to agree to go develop small hand weapons for the civilian side, but Maureen was strictly—she thought the Wars were futile—”

  
“They were,” Lup cuts in.

  
“Yeah, they were. But that was what caused the issue with Kalen in the first place—she and Lucian, her husband wouldn't make weapons for the Relic Wars and all the civil disputes it caused. Maureen didn’t want the Miller name to be associated with that sort of thing. But I convinced her we’d be doing good, that we would be helping more by acting than by staying hidden. We did it anonymously, and nothing was supposed to be deadly at all,” Lucretia mumbles, setting her mug aside, her few bites churning in her stomach. Lup said she’d feel better talking it out, but all she feels is sick. “Maureen trusted me, and I used that trust to convince her. I really thought we were… I thought we were doing the right thing.”

  
“We made these, these little hand grenades—they just flashed and emitted a concussive wave of magic and some smoke—little stun bombs, really. We’d ran equations with how powerful they could get before they did real damage, just so we could make sure, and… One day we came in and we were told the papers were missing, and we looked and looked, and—and this kid, this intern, said he found them under the table and…”

  
Lucretia sighs and covers her face in her hands. “We believed him. Maureen, oh… Maureen was always putting things in odd places or was dropping them or—she was a brilliant woman,” she whispers. “But sometimes brilliance put the reading in with the butter knives or did her cooking over a Bunsen burner. I would always find her just on the cusp of a breakthrough—or about to spread her agar plates on her toast.”

  
Lup snorts and mumbles around her spoonful of cake. “God, why is it that all scientists are cut from the same cloth?”

  
Lucretia smiles to herself faintly. “So we? We believed this kid—we believed Bain, who believed who told him, and so on. And if—if there was really anything off, truly, we… Maureen and I wouldn’t have noticed, we’d just… we’d only just… Just the day before the notes went missing, we’d—she’d kissed me for the first time,” she confesses quietly. The memory is so overwhelmingly good, so happy, that not even what would happen a few days later—the chain that it would set into motion—could mar it for her, even though it hurts to think about.

  
The memory aches like a sore tooth worried by a tongue—Maureen flushed and watching her as she wrote, blurting out the words and turning even pinker, reaching out to touch her and the way she sat before her on the table, laughing and jubilant. So many of her memories of Maureen are like this, laughing and teasing and so warm—so much of their time together was spent like that, only to be eclipsed by those few cold days, the dark missteps they didn’t think about until it was too late to correct their footing. Sometimes it’s too painful to think that the same woman who accidentally blurted out a marriage proposal in an embarrassed and love-struck daze was the same woman who’d thrown her out with such cold eyes and words.

  
She needs to brace for the same with Lup, with Magnus. She needs to prepare herself. All love has the prospect of leaving her cold and alone, and she needs to be ready.

  
“We were giddy and only paying attention to each other—we finished up our assignment, and went back to the lab and the rebellion was won,” Lucretia says. “We thought our job was accomplished. We thought we helped. Kalen was gone, deposed and ashamed and Maureen and Lucas could go back to creating things to help people. And Magnus,” she adds, voice quiet. “And Magnus could go on and marry Julia, have a life. Oh, Lup, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt to go to see his wedding, even though Maureen was waiting for me. But he was so happy. I… I thought I’d made them both happy, Magnus and Maureen.”

  
She fidgets with her skirt, pulling at the fabric, roping the hem up and twisting it around her fingers, feeling the press of cutting off her circulation.

  
“That didn’t last,” she whispers. “You know what happened—we put the pieces together in the aftermath. I… I went to town to buy paint, some sugar. I picked up a book for Luke and a new teapot and some seedlings for Maureen, little gifts… I’d gone into town and I thought I’d, I thought I saw Bain in town, but when I looked again, it wasn’t him, so… I didn’t think anything of it, but when I got back, Luke was just, he was upset, and he told me to go calm Maureen down… She was devastated in the ruins of her lab—I had never seen her be even the least bit violent, her temper was so even, Lup. I was scared she’d been attacked, she was just on the floor. I went to her and, and she had a letter and, and… That’s how I found out.”

  
Her voice shakes and she quiets, eyes hot. “Raven’s Roost had been destroyed by firebombs, something no one had seen before, and Maureen looked up at me and said ‘we did this’. It was…. It was the relics all over again, I’d done it again, and I thought—I thought I did it again, I knew better, I knew better than to meddle, than to help make something that could be twisted into something powerful, and I thought… I thought I’d killed Magnus.”

  
“You don’t… you don’t know that those bombs weren’t something Kalen already had,” Lup says softly. She kneels in front of Lucretia and takes her hands into her own, face pale and concerned. “Those might not have been you and Maureen.”

  
“I trust Maureen’s judgment, even now,” Lucretia says softly, “And she was sure.”

  
She sighs and looks away from Lup. She lets herself sag in her chair. “In the end, Magnus lived, but I killed his heart. Twice. Once with Fisher and magic and plots, and again with fire. I left him and then I burned him… Now can you see, Lup? I can’t, he can’t love me, I can’t love him; I don’t have the right to be forgiven—”

  
“Lucy,” Lup says, her voice high and trembling, “Take it from me, you can always come back from that, you can come back from that—I left, I let all those cities burn until I could get my hands on the Gauntlet—me too, Lucretia, me too, and you, and you—you and Barry, and Taako and Magnus and Merle and Dav, and- and the world— you can come back from destruction.”

  
She shakes her head, eyes damp as she leans up until she can put her forehead to Lucretia’s. “And anyone, anyone who says differently is wrong,” she says. “You might not always be forgiven—sometimes it’s okay not to forgive, but… But absolution and forgiveness are different things. No one has the right to treat you poorly, Lucretia. You can grow past what you think is unforgivable. You don’t have to spend your life atoning. Ask once, twice if you want, but then you learn and go on.”

  
“Magnus won’t forgive me,” Lucretia says softly, “Luke—Lucas will never. Maureen didn’t. You shouldn’t either, Lup, I left the Umbrastaff alone, I used the Gauntlet as a draw, as a show of power—Phandalin was always supposed to be destroyed.”

  
Lup holds her cheeks, hands firm as she shakes her head. “Oh, Lucretia, you think I didn’t know? You think the others never figured that out? I knew,” she whispers. “Lucas and Maureen, I don’t know what happened, Lucretia, but Magnus, he’ll forgive you, I know it.”

  
“I don’t know…”

  
“Love dog,” Lup says seriously, patting Lucretia’s cheeks. “Love. Dog.”

  
Lucretia shakes her head and laughs weakly. “That’s a terrible argument.”

  
“Love dog.”

  
“Lup,” Lucretia giggles, “Lup, seriously. This is serious. Really.”

  
“I know, but, you know—Merle was right,” she whispers. “Sometimes, you have to find the things to laugh about—or dance for, or joke, or, or any of it. Otherwise, you’ll just go crazy. We all, we all went to our own dark places, but now… Luce, because of you, there’s light. For me, for Taako, Barry—for all of us, Angus and all those kids at the Bureau, and Magnus and… there’s some for you too.”

  
She kisses Lucretia’s forehead softly. “I think it’s time you let yourself step out into it.”


	20. Revelation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little silliness courtesy of Lup this chapter.  
> (I have never been to a cheesecake factory, apparently they are fancy and dark.)

A few days later, Lucretia finds herself with her toes in the sand, a drink in hand as Lup chases Merle’s kids up and down the surf.

“How’ve you been?”

“Busy,” Lucretia says slowly. “I, uh. Did not know I was coming here.”

Merle snorts and nods slowly, grinning indulgently at her. “I can tell.”

“Well,” Lucretia laughs. Her dress is hiked up and tied above her knees, her sleeves woefully warm in the sunshine—winter has barely even touched the beach in Bottlenose Cove. “I was _told_ we were going to the Fantasy Cheesecake Factory, but I do think I’ve been lied to.”

“Shit,” Merle laughs. “That’s disappointing. Swing on by Chesney’s, we’ll set you up.”

“No, uh, if you don’t have cheesecake, it’s not on. It is good to see you—you’ve not been around while I’ve been around.”

“Oh, it’s good, I mean, you don’t pick up when I call—”

“Stop that shit right now,” she laughs, “I’ve literally watched you eye your ringing Stone until it stops and then go ‘oops’. Stop. You can just say you’re busy.”

He laughs with her and leans back onto his hands. “Lup told me you wanted to talk?”

Lucretia falls into silence, setting her drink into the sand. She twists it a few times so it sits steady, then lays her head on her knees, watching the surf come in.

“Lup meddles way too much,” Lucretia murmurs.

“She just wants everyone to be happy,” Merle says softly. “She feels bad for what happened, you know she does.”

“Yeah, I wish… I wish she wouldn’t. None of it was your fault either, even the parts that were your fault.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Yeah, it does,” she shoots back with a laugh.

They lapse into comfortable silence for a long time. Lucretia feels the sun on the back of her neck, the sand warm on her toes and through the fabric of her skirt; she would like nothing more than to curl up and sleep in the sunlight.

“Merle,” she asks quietly. “I didn’t ask you this before, because I wasn’t supposed to know. But, how do you manage to reconcile it? How did you come back from… from…”

“From being a shitass husband and an even shittier dad?” Merle says lightly. “I wondered when you were gonna wanna to talk about this.”

“I’m sorry,” Lucretia murmurs.

“No,” Merle interjects. “No need to be sorry, Lucretia. I don’t know what happened with you and Maureen Miller, or even that little turd Lucas, but… I do know that doesn’t do much to just keep talkin’ about bein’ sorry. Lucas is older than Mavis and Mookie are so it’s a bit different, but Lucretia, you can’t blame yourself for what he did.”

“You mean the Relic?”

“All that shit,” he says. He sighs and is quiet for a moment. “Sometimes, sometimes shit doesn’t work out the way you want. Sometimes you gotta work hard to make it even sort of work. If you know what you did, if you move past it, recognize it and just… go for it. It’ll work out better than if you just hover.”

“So, you’re saying I’m just supposed to… pretend that Maureen didn’t leave me, Lucas didn’t expressly look for something he was forbidden to, that all of it didn’t happen?”

“Nah. You just. Go on. It’s hard going, but it’s worth it. Sometimes ownin’ up to somethin’, sayin’ it out loud and acknowledin’ it without excuses does more than sayin’ sorry,” Merle says. “Sometimes you gotta leave it alone to heal.”  

Lucretia digs her fingers into the sand, scooping some up and letting it slide through her palms. “I never knew I was a bad wife until it was too late.”

Merle nods and looks out to the surf; he raises a genial hand in passing as someone walks past them. He reaches out to her.

“It’s okay, Lucretia,” he says, patting her hand softly. “That’s somethin’ that can be fixed in you, if you’re scared of it.”

“Do you think,” she asks, embarrassed to find her voice shaking. “Do you—if I hadn’t… do you think, for you, it would be different?”

“Oh, no.” He sighs and takes her hand in his own. “That was already here, I think. We all, we all have the ability to be bad people; you just have to choose differently every day. Just because you failed once don’t mean you’re always gonna. Look at me!”

“I don’t think you’re a failure,” Lucretia says, lips pursing up at the suggestion. “Merle, no. You are not a failure, never.”

He laughs and squeezes her hand. “See? And… we don’t think you’re bad,” he says. “You did bad things, yeah. But honey, in the end, it came through. You don’t gotta keep letting people take it out on you to make amends, ‘cause it’s not gonna work like that. You gotta, you gotta do what’s good for you before you can do good for them, and then it’ll happen. I was afraid that I’d never get a second chance with them, y’know? Still a shitty father, still a shit adventurer, how could I even try? You got me in a good place to start, a home and a job and friends and… it didn’t seem so hard anymore. I could see being able to try and make it up to ‘em. And here we are.”

“What if they never forgive me? Taako… Lucas… Maureen died because of the Cosmoscope,” Lucretia whispers. “She was making it to help me with the Relics, to run simulations on the system in preparation for the Hunger, based on information I gave her… She was making it because I set her on that path. He’s not ever going to… Luke’s never gonna forgive me for hurting Maureen. I can’t ignore that—”

“Making peace with that isn’t ignorin’ it, Lucretia.  Lucas called you when it got rough; he trusted you to do the right thing when he was scared. He was a jerk, but he knew his faults pretty well. He was lonely, and people do… Well, you know what people get up to when they’re lonely. And ignore Taako, leave him be.” 

He studies her face, and she looks back, searching for some signs that he’s just telling her what he thinks she wants to hear. She knows Merle isn’t one to do that, but she’s still so afraid of what he’s said.

For so long she’d wallowed in the guilt of her mistakes, afraid to reach out and take someone’s hand to pull her free. The closest she’d ever gotten was Maureen, her knees on the floor of her room, a vial rolling away as Maureen sobbed at the pain of realizing the truth of her husband’s death, of the truth of the world and the Relic Wars and all the damage it had wrought, begging Maureen for forgiveness.

Maureen had reached back, once.

But she recoiled her hand and turned her back, leaving Lucretia in the mire of what she had done, unable to crawl out on her own. She made her home there, deep in her guilt, because where else should she be? If no one was going to forgive her, why should she forgive herself?

“You’re doin’ good things, helpin’ a lot of people. A lot of people are happy just ‘cause you exist, Lucretia. You can’t ignore that,” he says. “We love you, and I won’t pretend that it doesn’t hurt to see yourself pretend like you don’t deserve it.”

She’d held out her hand at the end, and she hadn’t thought they would take it. But she had been desperate and afraid, and they _had_.

Maureen had written to her even after they’d separated. Taako remembers she hates squash. Lucas… is well, Lucas. They might not forgive her, they may even hate her, but they acknowledge that she exists, which is something wonderful in its own right.

So many people say that it’s okay for her to be, to exist and be happy. Magnus and Lup and now Merle; Angus and Carey and Killian and the entire Bureau. People stop her in Neverwinter every day, she’s forever thanked and hugged and shaking hands with people whose faces all blur in the peripherals of her memory. So many people she will never know other than this passing meeting, these small bonds that stretch from brief meetings to people who go out and live their lives.

These are the people she fought for—not just the seven of them, knit so tightly of the same stuff that they came together again and again, even when they didn’t know; not just the Bureau, handpicked and staffed and saved by her hand; not just Angus, precocious and so easily loved—but all of these people, all of the people she will never meet again.

What does she owe them? What does she owe herself?

For so long it was to prevent the end of their world. Now, now it’s…

Sometime when she wasn’t paying attention, it stopped being to atone.

She still thinks of what she does as penance, but she loves her library, loves the Bureau and Carey and Killian. She loves going out to the sites and speaking with people—the traveling, the work, the thought that goes into each project. She’s stressed by what she does—it’s hard and there are so many moving pieces that sometimes it’s overwhelming to think of picking up her pen each morning. There are clients that are rude and pushy and clients that spurn the change Sterling is enacting across Faerun. There’s danger and injuries and sore backs from standing, but she enjoys it.

“I can just… move on?” she asks softly.

There is a black spot in her heart; her own hunger and her own sorrows, dark and inky and oily. There are days where it seeps into her veins and drags her down into her own head. There are days where she barely notices it is there. She’s kept it covered, hidden, secret for so long that to discuss this, to have Lup and Magnus know, to have Merle smile at her as they talk, feels like light is burning away at it.

It won’t be for forever, but she notes the feeling. Remembers, for when it gets rough.

“Yeah, there’s no shame in walkin’ forward. As long as you remember where your mistakes are, well, I don’t see why not. People might give you a hard time, but in the end, nobody’s gonna make your peace for you but you.”  

“Thank you, Merle,” she says softly.

He pats her hand and lifts his wooden one to beckon Lup forward. She trots up, Mookie riding on her shoulder with her hand in Mavis’, who holds a bucket full of shells and rocks.

“Y’all good?” Lup asks, grinning down at them. Mookie makes a flying leap towards Merle, who grunts loudly as he’s landed on.

“Yeah,” Lucretia laughs. “Now do I get cheesecake or what?”

* * *

“I mean, we could have stayed and eaten at Chesney’s,” Lucretia laughs as Lup holds the door open for her. “I was only joking about the cheesecake thing.”

Lup grins and shakes her head. “Honey, if you want seafood food poisoning, we can go back. But I do think I promised you cheesecake.”

“You did,” Lucretia says. “That said, I might get tiramisu? Not sure.”

“Get both, hi, our party’s already here,” Lup says, catching the eye of the hostess.

“ _What_?”

“Mags is visiting Neverwinter for his dog classes today, he should be here already? He’s a big ol’ dude—oh, there, we’re set, thanks!”

“Woah, woah, woah, Lup,” Lucretia hisses, grabbing Lup’s arm tightly. “You’re gonna crash his lunch? No, no—listen I know what you’re gonna do here—”

She hauls Lup back into the entryway, much to the distress of the hostess.

“We saved the world it’s fine, no worries, please don’t call security,” Lup calls out to the girl.

“Lup,” Lucretia snaps. “Your fondness for meddling is wearing on my nerves today.”

“Listen! I just asked him if he was up for lunch, and he said he was in town with the dogs or something, we’re not crashing his lunch! I asked, sheesh! Give me a little benefit of the doubt!”

“You dragged me to Bottlenose Cove,” she says. “Just to talk to Merle.”

“You needed the chat,” Lup says, waving a hand. “You wouldn’t have gone on your own! You have lunch with Magnus all the time, I don’t get why inviting him to hang with us is suddenly me trying to get you to tie the knot? And it’s not like I can invite Taako or Barry to come with us, and Ango is at school.”

Lucretia pauses, feeling her face flush hot; Lup’s pout is entirely convincing, and therefore completely suspicious.

“And also? I think it’s funny that you jump straight to the idea that I’m setting you two up,” Lup leads. She’s using her best _you’ve wounded_ _me_ expression and voice. 

Lucretia sighs.

“Okay, stop,” Lucretia says, holding up her hands. “I get it. Okay. Cheesecake time.”

“Glad we settled that,” Lup says, grinning smugly. She hooks her elbow around Lucretia’s arm and marches her back in, past the poor hostess, and right towards the table Magnus already occupies. It looks like he’s been waiting for them a while; he’s already got half a drink. 

He looks up from his menu and grins. “Hail and well met!”

“Don’t be a goof,” Lup laughs, plopping herself directly across from Magnus, leaving only the chairs beside him empty. She leers up at Lucretia.

Lucretia settles to the left of him, finding herself smiling despite herself at his earnest grin.

“I saw you two duck out, everything okay?”

“Fine,” Lucretia says over Lup’s _well Lucretia_. Magnus just chuckles.

“How was Merle and everyone?” he asks, passing his menu over to Lucretia.

“Oh, fine. Those kids of his are something else,” Lup laughs. “Luce spent her time chatting with Merle, so I was on kiddo duty. Got my ass kicked in a breath holding contest.”

“Merle says it’s because they hold their breath when he cooks,” Magnus laughs. “Oh, Lucy, you’ve still got some sand,” he murmurs, brushing his hand across the back of her arm.

Lucretia decidedly does not look in Lup’s direction—she can feel the leer from her side of the table. “Whoops,” she chuckles.

“What’d you chat with Merle about? Bureau stuff or…?”

“Oh, it was… well,” Lucretia says slowly, running her fingers against the edges of the menu. “We uh, share some… you know.”

“Oh,” Magnus murmurs. He squeezes her elbow gently. “It go okay?”

She looks over at him and finds herself smiling, something soft and warm spreading out behind her bones at the look on his face. “Yeah,” she sighs. “Yeah, it did.”

He grins at her—the one that crinkles his eyes and nose and carves out the lines that will settle on his face, the one she had always been so afraid he’d never turn towards her again. She’s still scared, just a little, that soon, she’ll never receive it again.

“I’m glad,” he says. He touches her shoulder softly, then squeezes it. “That’s real good, Lucretia.”

She nods, her throat tight. She wants to reach up and grab his hand, touch the apple of his cheek, lean into the praise and soak him up like a flower opening up to the sun. She can’t even think of words to say, other than the overflow of emotions, of the quiet litany of her heartbeat.

The moment is shattered though as Lup starts murmuring “ _No, no, can you come back in a moment?_ ” at someone.

“ _Lup_!” Lucretia scolds, turning her gaze from Magnus to Lup and the very startled and admonished looking waiter.

Lup scrunches her nose and sighs, sinking into her chair. “Okay, fine.”

“I’m _really_ sorry,” Lucretia stammers to the waiter as Magnus gives a bemused chuckle. “I—yes, just, um? Go on?”

“I uh, just wanted to see if you wanted more menus? Or drinks?”

“Oh, yes, please,” Lucretia says, blindly stretching her foot out to kick Lup in the shin. “Water, please.”

Lup laughs as she takes her menu and orders her drink, shaking her head at Lucretia’s glare. “You two were having a moment, I just wanted to let you have it,” she laughs, ducking behind the menu.

Lucretia sneaks a quick glance at Magnus. He’s looking at his menu like it’s the most important thing in the world, his face pink. She feels overly aware of how many  _couples_ populate the restaurant and flushes. 

“You’re not funny, Lup,” Lucretia sighs.

“I think I’m a _riot_ ,” Lup complains. She sighs once she catches the look Lucretia gives her. She shrugs. “Anyway, Magnus, how’s your dog class going?”

“Oh! It’s not for me,” he says, “I’m assisting the training course with Avery while Muffin’s at puppy school.”

“Muffin?”

“My dog,” Lucretia says, looking at Lup pointedly.

“Oh, yeah! The love— _ly_ , the lovely dog puppy Lucretia told me about!”

Lucretia snorts behind her hand. “How’s that going, by the way? Will she sit yet?”

“You act like she’s some wild baby,” Magnus complains. “Yes okay, she’s a little high energy, but she’s just been real excited to see you when you visit, okay? She’s a lot calmer now that she’s more used to puppy school and the other dogs. You should come pick her up with me,” he says. “You too, Lup.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Lup says, pointing her straw at Magnus as their waiter sets their water down.

Lucretia murmurs her thanks to them. They order, get their food, and continue to chat without any further embarrassments from Lup.

“Oh, this is good,” Lucretia murmurs. “Not Taako-good, but good.”

“May I?” Magnus asks, gesturing towards her plate of tiramisu cheesecake.

“Sure,” she says. She cuts off a piece and holds it out without thinking—Magnus hesitates for a brief second before leaning forward to take a bite. He looks up at her through his lashes, and Lucretia swallows hard, neck and cheeks uncomfortably warm.

She bites her lip, blinking as he draws back, still holding eye contact with her even as he visibly flushes in the dim light.

Lup stands up suddenly, her chair clattering behind her.

“Gotta bounce,” she says with urgency, snatching up her cake into her bare hands. She swears and takes a large bite, patting her pockets down with her non-cheesecake hand so she can toss a handful of gold onto the table. “Legit just saw a a bounty walk out of here; gotta make some dough. Bye!”

“…Should we follow her?” Magnus asks, stopping a coin from rolling off the table. “If it’s a necromancer, it could get bad.”

“Do you have any weapons on you?” Lucretia asks dryly.

“Uh. I have a knife?”

“Oh gods,” Lucretia breathes as she watches Lup vault over the hostess’ section to barrel out the door, scythe materializing in her hand once she’s cleared the restaurant. She puts her head on the table. “I do not know her. I don’t know her. We don’t know her. We’re gonna get kicked out of the damn Fantasy Cheesecake Factory.” 

Magnus chuckles dryly. “Wow, look at her go,” he marvels. “…There she went! What a coincidence, yeah? Wish we coulda helped her.”

Lucretia shakes her head, unwilling to explain to Magnus that there probably is not a necromancer (or at least one that has just dined in the Fantasy Cheesecake Factory, though the decor is a little on the dark and sinister side), and that Lup probably only bailed on them for her own amusement.

She cuts a piece from her cake. “It’s her job, we’d only be in the way. I don’t even have a wand on me.”

“Aw, Luce, we all know you don’t need one, Miss Most-Powerful-Arcanist,” he laughs.

She laughs and takes a bite, chewing slowly and trying not to think about how her fork had just been in his mouth. She’s a little too old for such silly thoughts, but her heart doesn’t get the memo, especially when she catches Magnus smiling fondly at her.

“What?”

He smirks and shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“That’s not a nothing face,” she accuses, then reaches over to snatch a strawberry from his plate in revenge.

“Aw, hey,” Magnus complains. “I was just complimenting you.”

She gives a contemplative hum around the strawberry, chewing slowly as she looks him in the eye. He laughs softly, a quiet huff through his nose as he looks away for a second.

“Really,” he says softly. “It’s just that, you’re kind of amazing, you know? Really, actually. When you think about it, you’re something else.”

“Oh,” she says, surprised to hear her voice is higher than she meant it to be. She takes another bite of cheesecake. “Thanks,” she says. “Um.”

“Oh, you have, um,” he says, reaching out to brush his thumb against her chin. “There.”

His hand hovers between them, his eyes a little wide. And she thinks, for the first time, that maybe Lup isn’t all that wrong after all.


	21. Ageless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you by fluff, fluff, and more fluff. Also by the five stitches in my thumb so if there are typos whoooops?

“You know, honestly, I thought we’d be banned from the Fantasy Cheesecake Factory,” Lucretia mutters numbly, looking at the coupons in her hand.

Magnus laughs and pats her shoulder. “We saved the world; they said no harm, no foul! And she paid for our meal!”

“I just, she _jumped over the hostess_ ,” she insists. She refrains from adding ‘for no reason’.

Magnus shrugs. “It was funny? We get up to shit all the time, Lucy; I don’t know why you’re so embarrassed. Besides, the Fantasy Cheesecake Factory can’t help it if one of their clients happened to be one of the Raven Queen’s bounties, yanno?”

Lucretia makes a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat, silently vowing to give Lup shit later that night for bailing like she did.

“Thank you for inviting me to pick up Muffin,” she says instead.

“You don’t have to thank me, she’s your dog,” Magnus laughs. “She’ll be ready to go home with you now she’s house trained—well, you might need to hold for a bit, she’s a little bad at it.”

“Wild. Baby,” Lucretia mouths at him.

He shakes his head, scrunching his nose up at her. “She’s just a baby,” he insists. “She only peed a little at the door, okay, but she asked! Soon. Soon.”

Lucretia laughs, “No, let me take her, I can get out of so much useless paperwork. _Oops_ , my dog peed on your bureaucratic red tape, sorry, Brad! Sorry, Leon!”

“I thought you enjoyed paperwork,” Magnus snickers.

“I mean, sort of, but it’s different,” Lucretia murmurs.

“Oh, this way to the shelter,” Magnus interjects, gently taking her elbow and leading her down the right street. “How is it different?”

“Mm, it’s a lot of interdepartmental memos and thank you letters and signatures,” she says, tucking her fingers into her pockets to keep them from the chilly air.

He keeps his fingers curled loosely against the crook of her elbow. “No fun?”

“It was when you three were around,” she says, shooting him a sly smile. “I miss those colorful field reports. I would read them to Fisher’s baby, you know? Which… uh. Well, now all of Faerun knows some… colorful expletives.”

“Don’t act like you didn’t teach Junior just as many,” Magnus chuckles.

“I’m sorry they didn’t come back, you know,” she sighs. “I wanted to apologize to Fisher. And I was fond of, of Junior. Did you, you know, Maureen called Fisher my weird dog, and I thought of you every time.”

He grips her elbow tighter, chest seizing with a wash of emotions that he can barely even begin to categorize. Fondness, sorrow, guilt, jealousy, relief. He knew there was probably never a day where she didn’t think of him—think of them, the crew, her family—but to hear her say it.

“Lucretia,” he whispers, stopping in his tracks. He holds her arm, and it’s like he sees her all at once—she’s the Director, she’s Lucretia the chronicler, she’s his Lucy, still, who can’t quack to save her life, who color codes her journals and paperwork and who ate three slices of cheesecake because that’s how much money Lup threw down.

And he loves her. He loves her more than anything.

She looks at him and bites her lip, face slowly crumpling into the familiar look of guilt and sorrow that she wears far too much.

“Magnus, I’m sorry, that was... that was thoughtless of me to say,” she says.

He drops his hand, catching her fingers in his own as he reaches out to grab her other hand. “No, no, that’s not it,” he says. “I’m not upset, Lucy, no. I’m just, you—it’s so rare for you to talk about yourself like that, I—it means a lot.”

She looks at him with suspicion, but shakes her head slowly, a small smile touching her lips. “I don’t get why,” she says. “It’s just me.”

“It’s you, that’s why,” he says, squeezing her hands.

He loves her—he’s known it for a while, but he’s never fully embraced it. It’s always been in terms of Julia’s memory, the memory of the mission, the woman that Lucretia is and the person she was, in practicality and her grief over Maureen and how the whole crew interacts. But ever since the wedding, ever since Lup called him out, he’s starting to slot the pieces together, one by one.

He can still see Julia again—it will be a long time from now, but that’s okay. He has now, today, all of the rest of his life to see Lucretia, and he wants to, every single day. Not just in passing hours or minutes, lunches and dinners where they go their separate ways—but in every aspect. He wants to get up in the morning and see her; he wants to see her things in his home—or his in her own—even when they’re apart.

He holds her hands tight, bringing them together so he can clasp both of her hands between his palms. “I hope you’ll tell me more,” he says softly.

Lucretia opens her mouth, then pauses. She shakes her head and smiles as she slips her hands away to hold one of his hands. “I will,” she says.

She sounds wistful, a little mournful. “I don’t know if you’ll like all of it, Magnus,” she confesses. “There are things… I’m not proud of myself.”

He brings their hands up, pressing her knuckles to his lips, not quite kissing them, just letting them rest. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “I’m proud of you anyway.”

“Oh, Magnus,” she sighs, “No. Don’t get my hopes up, I—”

Whatever she’s about to say is cut off by a dog trotting up to them and barking.

Lucretia jolts back and then clears her throat hastily, shoving her hands into her pockets. She’s sheepish as she watches Magnus kneel down to check out the tags on the dog.

“Hey, bud, you escaped, huh? Well,” he sighs. “Let’s get you back.”

He produces a lead from his coat pocket, clipping it to the dog’s collar as Avery jogs around the corner, “Mags! Shit, have you seen—oh, there’s the escapee— his people came to drop him off for a grooming and he just shot out—“

“Getting lax on security, huh?”

“We were a shelter last year, the expansions were more than we bargained for and our poor volunteers weren’t expecting a jailbreak,” she snaps as Magnus laughs.

“Luce, this is Avery,” Magnus says as he hands her the dog’s lead. “She’s my friend with the dogs. Avery, this is Lucretia.”

The Halfling woman grins and holds out her hand, shaking enthusiastically. “Oh, I know _you_.”

“Ah, yes.”

“You’re the friend he got the puppy for,” she continues.

Lucretia blinks, a grin blossoming from her earlier discomfort. “Yes, that’s me,” she says. “I’m the puppy friend.”

“She’s real cute, let’s go big guy.”

“You talkin’ to me, or the dog?” Magnus asks.

“The dog, but Johann’s done being groomed and puppy class is done, so maybe you should come on along too?”

Lucretia laughs and then gives a startled yelp as the dog shoots between her feet upon hearing the wood _groom_ , knocking her unbalanced with the leash. Magnus catches her and hands the lead off to Avery, keeping an arm firmly around her waist. “Easy there,” he murmurs.

“Thanks,” she whispers, “Thought I was gonna bust it right there.”

“That would be bad,” Magnus agrees. “C’mon, let’s go pick up Muffin and Johann.”

Avery whistles for the dog to stop pulling at the leash and it whines. “No you don’t,” she murmurs, leaning down to scoop the dog up off the street. “Dirty boy, c’mon.”

“Wow, that’s uh, one way to get them inside,” Lucretia laughs, watching as Avery carries the dog around the corner.

“Oh yeah, sometimes you gotta,” Magnus laughs. “Noelle hates baths too. Johann doesn’t like getting his nails trimmed up, so I bring him here, so I don’t feel bad when he whines.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “Magnus, really?”

He knows she both means the hand on her back and his unwillingness to clip Johann’s nails. He focuses on the latter as he gently guides her around the corner. “Yep. It makes me cry, Lucy. Can’t do it,” he says firmly. “So this is Dog Haven, which Avery just recently expanded. I helped out a lot,” he offers shyly. “Giving suggestions and talking with some other dog owners in the city. She trains, shelters, and fosters out dogs. I sort of want to start my own place like it.”

“That would be fun,” Lucretia muses, looking around the large space. “If you need any help with internal structuring, I could help—Brad could too, I’m sure he’d enjoy it. He’s good at the bureaucratic parts of it.”

“You don’t think it’s silly?”

“Not at all,” she answers. “I mean, I built a second moon for my secret paramilitary organization, I think a dog training service is quite reasonable.”

Magnus snorts. “Okay, fair. Oh, look, the puppy class is being dismissed!”  

He turns her gently towards the right side of the room, pointing to where a group of owners and volunteers stand with a group of puppies, each of them working to get their puppy to sit. They’re behind a ring of plastic gating, and the main instructor catches Magnus’ eye and gives a little wave. They pull out their wand, and the gate is dispersed once each person manages to clip a leash, or pick up, each puppy.

“Go on, you can go pick up Muffin from the group, they’re done.”

He gives Lucretia a very gentle nudge, letting his fingers linger on her shoulders until she’s stepped out of arms’ reach. He watches her make her way over to the volunteer with Muffin, watching with a smile as the volunteer explains the commands they taught that morning.

He turns and heads towards Avery at the front desk. “Got your jailbreak settled?”

“Oh yeah, poor dude doesn’t like shampoo or having his teeth brushed,” she chuckles. “Johann’ll be done in a few and you’ll be good to go.”

“Thanks, Avery.”

She grins and nods towards the training group.

“So… _Elegant_ , huh?” Avery says, eyeing Lucretia. “Maybe shoulda guessed it was about her. Congrats, dude.”

Magnus flushes and shakes his head, “Nope; please don’t.”

Avery snorts. “I gotta,” she laughs.

Muffin barrels into Lucretia, yipping as she crawls up into her lap. Magnus smiles as he watches her lean down to let Muffin lick her face. “I guess. How’d she do in training today?”

“She’s taking well to commands and the other dogs. She’ll finish the obedience course in the normal window. We taught shake today, so get her to practice. Tell your totally-not-girlfriend to practice with her too, so she’ll learn to recognize more than your voice.”

Magnus leans over the counter and plucks up the small stuffed toy he’d found earlier that morning. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tease me about that _where she can hear_?” he mumbles, face burning.

Avery snickers, “She’s too busy with the dogs, honestly.”

Magnus sighs and shakes his head at his friend, putting a finger to his lips. The last thing he wants is to spook Lucretia.

“Lucretia, look at what I found for you,” Magnus calls as he turns, only to find Lucretia lying on the training floor with Muffin over her face.

He pockets the toy and tries over, trying not to laugh as Muffin’s tail wiggles her entire body. “You alright there, Luce?”

“Fine,” Lucretia mumbles. “Just. Soft.”

“I get it, dog bellies are cute but, uh. Maybe get off the floor?”

“No, I’m comfortable.”

Magnus picks up Muffin, holding her to his chest as he looks down at Lucretia. She promptly covers her face with her hands and sits up, but not before he catches a flustered looking grin on her face. He knows that smile well, from the way her brows turn up to the darkening of her cheeks and the fondness in her eyes; it’s a smile much younger than she is now, one that he hasn’t seen in well over ten years.

He feels soft around the edges, warm and pleasantly pleased to realize she must have heard Avery tease him, and that she’s not spooked in the slightest.

“Hey there,” he says softly. “We don’t suffocate ourselves in dogs.”

“No?”

He laughs. Muffin scrambles from his arms and runs in a circle around them both until Lucretia reaches out to grab her rope toy from the ground.

“What’d you find for me, Magnus?”

He watches her hold the toy over Muffins head, shaking it back and forth until the puppy springs up and snatches it, then goes speeding off towards Avery.

“Look! For you, until Muffin can go home with you,” he says proudly, producing a stuffed toy from his pocket. It’s a little white dog with shiny black beads for eyes. “They had a bunch of kids come through, and they all got little toys, and this was extra.”

Lucretia smiles at him and gingerly takes the toy from his hands. “Thank you, awww, it does look like a little Muffin.”

She stands slowly, and he puts his hand under her elbow to help her rise without tripping over the hem of her dress. She smiles at him and pats his arm gently, and he knows this moment, they’ve played it out before, so many lifetimes ago. A small gift, something silly—a carving or a flower or a treat, and a grin and she always would rise onto her toes and kiss his cheek.

The grin is the same, but she stops there, simply patting his bicep gently as she walks past him to Muffin, her lead in one hand and the little toy in the other as she stands near Johann and Avery.

His throat is tight with the wistful urge he remembers from so many worlds, from his days with Julia. He wants her, needs her—everything in him begs him to keep her close, to never let her leave his sight again.

But he doesn’t have that right yet—maybe one day, if how she looks at him is any indication, if how hard he wishes for it gives him any luck. He knows he’s hurt her, though, these past few weeks as he’s tried to sort through his feelings; he’s hurt her just by skirting around talking to her about their relationship, about his feelings, about it all.

That’s something that has to stop. He takes Johann’s lead and tucks his arm around Lucretia’s as he pays Avery and lets Avery give Lucretia a  schedule for Muffin’s training. Soon, Muffin will go home with her and not him, and it’s… a little lonely.

They walk, arm in arm with a dog on each side, to the open park in Neverwinter. Lucretia hands Magnus Muffin’s lead and pulls her coinpurse from her pocket, riffling through it for the sigils for her transport spell. “Are the dogs ready?” she asks.

“Hell no, do it anyway,” Magnus says. “We’ll carry them through it.”

“Oh boy, here we go,” she laughs as Magnus scoops Johann and Muffin up into his arms. She closes her eyes and whispers the key phrase to activate the spell. She reaches out and grabs a handful of Magnus’ shirt and steps through the spell rift, and onto the main square of the former Craftsman Corridor of Ravens’ Roost.

“ _Woo_ ,” Magnus laughs, setting both dogs down. He hands Lucretia Muffin’s lead, covering her hand with his own as Muffin promptly tries to take off. “Careful, she’ll tug. She doesn’t know not to.”

“Oh dear,” Lucretia says.

Magnus grins at her and puts a hand on her elbow. “It’ll get better as we walk,” he promises, whistling for Johann to stand up. They walk from the square, bustling with people and children, towards the dirt lane that leads to Magnus’ cabin.

The wind is colder here than it is in Neverwinter, with snow on the lane and patches of ice glistening in the sunset. They are silent, but not uncomfortably so; Muffin and Johann run to the end of their leashes, then back again, yipping and hopping around their feet.

Magnus wants to do this for the rest of his life. He catches a glance of Lucretia smiling indulgently at her puppy—a look so different from the one of silent grief she’d worn the day he gave Muffin to her.  

“Lucy, I... I want to apologize,” Magnus says slowly as they approach his front gate. He keeps his hand on her elbow as they walk, occasionally reaching down to help her with Muffin’s lead when the puppy begins to tug. “Since the wedding, I know I’ve... I’ve been real distant with you.”

“Ah,” Lucretia breathes. She wraps the leash around her fingers as her heart pounds its way up her throat. “I um. Well.”

“Oh, Luce, that’ll hurt your hand,” he murmurs, unlooping the fabric. He lets his hand rest against her knuckles. “Um. I know it hurt your feelings the other day when I leaned away, and when I talked about why I needed Johann,” he says softly. “And that was never my intention.”

Somehow, they’ve stopped moving. They’re at the border from his yard and the trail, the spot where she drops him off every meeting— her transport sigil is at the corner of his walk, carved carefully into a rock; she doesn’t need it anymore, really.

“Don’t worry about me,” she murmurs.

Magnus takes the lead from her hands. “That’s kind of what I do,” he laughs. “I worry about you. I think about you and I, I don’t want to upset you— I love you, Lucretia,” he says softly.

He reaches out and tips her chin up with his knuckles. She reaches out and touches his wrist, staring wide eyed up at him as he leans forward to kiss her forehead. “Goodnight, Lucy. Let me know when you’re home safe.”

“My— the spell takes me to my apartment,” she blurts.

He laughs and cups her cheek. He traces his thumb against the line of her cheek, over the thin tracery of wrinkles at the corner of her eye. “Call me anyway?”

“I— yes, okay.”

He watches her step back and  kneel forward to touch her transportation circle—she disappears in a silver flash, so much like the way he would watch her come back to him, time and time again.

Seconds later, his stone crackles to life in his pocket. He scoops it out, unleashing Muffin and Johann into his yard as he thumbs it on, laughing as Lucretia’s dry voice fills his yard.

“ _Bad news, Magnus, I got transported to the depths of hell—oh wait, that’s just my laundry.”_


	22. Shatter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fantasy cheesecake factory lich ring is a goof courtesy of the wda, thanks, I laughed stupidly hard.  
> Also thank you @emi_rose for giving this a look over when I was freaking out about it!

She chats with Magnus well into the evening; they only hang up when Magnus’ dogs interrupt them for their dinner.  They’ve been talking for hours, yet she finds herself wishing he didn’t have to go at all.

They part with a promise to meet in the morning and a _sleep well_ that Lucretia knows, without a shadow of a doubt, means _I love you_. She’s heard it too many times now, years and years past, to pretend it means anything different. In fact, she finds that she’s tired of pretending.

She hugs the stuffed toy to her chest, feeling giddy. She wants to bask in it, grin until her face is sore and roll into her pillows like she once did so many years ago. But that feeling is quickly replaced by the sinking sort of dread that makes her dinner rise to the back of her throat:

Magnus said he loved her—and she, and she… There’s no questioning that she loves him—she loves him as family and as a lover, and in all the ways she’s learned how to love a person over the course of her impossibly long life. But he doesn’t know everything she’s done; he doesn’t know the extent of the pain she’s put him through.

She picks up her stone to dial Lup. As it rings, her heart pounds unevenly in her chest. She stands from her bed and paces, biting down on her lip as the ringing goes on and on. Finally, Lup picks up:

“ _Lucy, hon, I’m busy—apparently that guy was only the start of an issue, we’re up to our elbows in an underground necromantic ring operating out of, guess where—that fucking Fantasy Cheesecake Factory—“_

Lup’s voice is crackly with energy, the sort that tells Lucretia that she’s dropped most pretenses of pretending to be mortal.  

“There really was a necromancer?” Lucretia squeaks.

“ _Yes, geesh, Lucy! I wouldn’t have made a damn scene! Listen, if I wanted to give you and Mags room I woulda just gone to the bathroom for a long time?”_

“Shit!”

“ _You didn’t have to say it, Lucy.”_

“Ew. Lup, don’t be disgusting,” Lucretia sighs, pinching her nose.

“ _Okay, but homegirl, you gonna tell him you’ve got it bad for him, so you can go get married and have disgustingly cute lumberjack children?”_

“I’m well into my fifties,” Lucretia says flatly.

_“He’s got an in with Fate, you want lumberjack babies, Fate can hook you up.”_

“Lup,” Lucretia sighs again. She drags her finger across the edge of her desk. “There’s Ravens’ Roost to worry about, Julia, all the things with Maureen and… I just. I can’t let him keep thinking he loves me—”

“ _Stop right there, babe_ _, he doesn’t think it. Magnus adores you—oh, Barry, hey, take a look at this sigil for me, they’ve done revisions that aren’t textbook!—anyway, Magnus would build you a third moon if you asked him, I don’t think you should worry about it. He’s gonna be upset but he loves you, Lucretia. He’s not stupid, he knows you ducked in and out of everyone’s lives during the interim.”_

“I just… you… you know what,” Lucretia says slowly, inhaling deeply. “You’re right. You’re right. I’m… I’m gonna believe you.”

“ _I know it’s hard,”_ Lup says gently. _“Just tell him and let him decide from there, he’s healed up a lot this year, it’s a good time. There might be a little friction, but he cares about you.”_

“Thank you,” she murmurs. “Good luck busting that necromantic cheesecake ring.”

Lup laughs once, and then the line falls silent. Lucretia puts down her stone gingerly atop the pile of papers on her desk. She runs her fingers over the folder with Maureen’s letters, almost tempted to pull them out to read the way she was once loved. But, like her journals, she can never bear to reread them. She touches her chest instead, right where her ring rests.

She heaves yet another sigh, turns and waves her hand to dispel her lights, shuffling towards her bed.

Lucretia curls up on her sheets, looking at the toy on her pillow. She touches the plush snout softly, trying to clear her mind. She may have told Lup that she’s chosen to believe her, and she does. She does, but she can’t let herself _hope_.

She can’t let herself think of anything, not some distant future where she comes and goes freely in Magnus’ love, where the dogs are hers too, and she is warm and safe with him. It’s too much to want; it’s too much to think of; it’s too much to hope for. She is content, here, now, with what she has: the Bureau and her library and all the work she is doing to help Faerun. She is fine where she is.

She does not want more. She shouldn’t.

She tells herself this, over and over, until it is a wordless, mindless mantra: _don’t hope, don’t hope, don’t hope, don’t don’t don’t._

The last time she hoped, the last time she dared herself to dream, it had hurt so badly.

Her life with Maureen was a soap-bubble dream, one that had so easily been popped. That fleeting happiness left her aching. She’d let herself believe that Magnus would back her up when he was inoculated, only to get a sword in her direction, only to get cut off—he forgave her, in the end, but at that moment, she’d hurt so badly that she wanted to be the villain they were making her out to be.

She’s always wanted to be the villain others have wanted her to be, and that scares her. If Magnus doesn’t forgive her, if he paints her again as someone heartless and cold, she’s not sure what she’ll become.

She holds the stuffed dog to her cheek and closes her eyes, but she does not sleep.

* * *

She summons a glass sphere to pick her up—she’s afraid she’s so nervous that she’ll mess up the teleportation spell. With her luck, she’d wind up on some cliff-face miles away despite the sigils carved in to guide her spell.  

She fidgets with her bracer as she waits for the ball to descend. Snow dusts the grass in the park like sugar, making everything glittery in the morning air. Her stomach churns as air whips around her, blowing specks of dirt and ice against her cheeks.

 _“Here you go, ma’am. Just let me know when to recall. Tell Magnus I said hi_ ,” Avi says on the intercom. _“You coming to fantasy bingo tonight?”_

“Probably,” Lucretia says, buckling herself in. She gently keys in the manual override, chewing on the inside of her cheek absently. “Not sure yet. Who’s calling the numbers?”

 _“Carey,”_ Avi sighs.

“Oh. So Killian’s gonna win,” she laughs. “Maybe. Depends on how things go today.”

_“Alright—gotta go, I’m being hailed from a construction site. Work well today, ma’am!”_

Lucretia inputs coordinates for Ravens’ Roost, and lets the magic do the rest for her, folding her hands over her churning stomach.

She plays her speech over and over in her head. Explaining about Maureen, focusing on why she wanted to do it, focusing on trying to help. Explaining without mentioning Kalen, because she’s not sure what the effect will be on him now that Wonderland has taken his foe from him.

She focuses on just being Lucretia, not the Director. She’s hidden behind Madame Director too much, and for too long, and it was that, in the end, that ruined her and Maureen. Maureen deserved better—so does Magnus.

The ride to Ravens’ Roost has never felt so simultaneously short and long. When the sphere finally touches down at the end of Magnus’ lane, her knotted stomach has turned into a bone-deep chill and a tremor in her hands.

She could call it all off. She could distance herself, stop the hurt now—she could run, she could hole herself up in her office on the second moon, stop answering Magnus’ calls, put a stop to this foolish hope now. But she’d never been good at resisting her heart, never been good at avoiding Magnus, never been her best alone.

She loves him far too much to deprive him of the truth. She’d always been honest with him, until she wasn’t, and she will forever regret the chasm of loneliness that had spurred in her. She will always regret what happened with Maureen—even if this means the end for them, for whatever they are now, she has to be honest.

She makes herself get out of the sphere, makes herself take each step forward like she has every day for the past twelve odd years, and knocks on Magnus’ door. She waits and twists her hands and hears him moving towards the door amongst all the barking, and she takes a step back against the oncoming canine floor out of habit.

“Lucretia!” Magnus says happily as dogs spill past him into his front yard.

She smiles despite her nerves, the coldness in her bones ebbing away in the warmth of his joy at seeing her. She wants to be younger, so she could jump forward like she used to after the hardest cycles. A step, a leap, and then his arms, just like it used to be when he would spin her around the deck after his death or after an injury that left him unable to walk, or even after just hours apart—it didn’t matter why, sometimes. All that mattered was that they could, and that they did.

“You could have just unlocked it yourself,” he laughs, reaching for her hand. “C’mon, it’s cold!”

She curls her fingers into the waffle weave of his sweater, smiling up at him. He undoes her scarf and brushes snow from her shoulders and she closes her eyes, savoring the moment.

“Magnus,” she whispers. “Last night, you said you loved me.”

He’s quiet for a moment and clears his throat. “I uh. Lucretia, listen.”

She shakes her head and slowly unbuttons her coat, hanging it on the hook by the door where he’s put her scarf. “Let’s talk?” she asks.

“…Yeah,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “After you? I can make some tea.”

Before she can answer, he’s heading towards the kitchen, hand raking through his hair and tugging at the roots.

She swallows hard and makes her way to the sofa where Johann is curled up. She gingerly moves the newspaper she’d obviously interrupted Magnus reading and settles next to the big dog. She pets him slowly, grinning when Muffin comes speeding around the corner.

She laughs in surprised delight when Muffin launches herself up onto the sofa to climb all over her, licking at her face and neck and hair.

“You gotta tell her no,” Magnus says, holding two steaming mugs. “Down, Muffin. _Down_.”

Muffin whines and Lucretia gently nudges her into her lap, holding a hand lightly on the dog’s haunches to keep her still. Muffin wriggles about a little, but settles enough for Lucretia to take her tea.

She sets it aside.

“Lucretia, I’m sorry,” he says softly, sitting himself in front of her on a footstool. “I didn’t—”

“You didn’t do anything, Magnus,” she says softly. She lets herself reach out to touch his shoulder. Warmth rises from him into her chilled fingers, and she could leave it at this. She could leave it just at this and lean into his arms. “I love you, too.”

She could, but she can’t. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she did.

She cuts him off before he can say anything—already the grin on his face makes her mouth taste like bile. “But I—oh, I, you can’t,” she stammers over his voice. “Please, don’t. I love you, Magnus, but I did something terrible to you. Please don’t say anything.”

“Lucy,” he says hoarsely, “The thing with Fisher, all of it, I forgave you. Please forgive yourself,” he pleads. “You were grieving then, for Lup, for this world, and you didn’t think you had a choice, I love you— and you, oh man, Lucretia, I love you—”

“I helped destroy Ravens’ Roost,” she blurts out, unable to hear him defend her, adore her, when there was this between them.

She knows she’s made a mistake as she watches the color drain from his face.

“ _What_?”

She feels a tremor go through her—she’s heard this tone once before, and only once, as he slipped to his knees in her bedroom, over a decade before. It’s the sound of him starting to reframe his entire life again, of the world shifting beneath his feet.

After all the practicing, all the time worrying, all of it, she’d started in the worst way possible. There will be no coming back from this.

She never had a place here in this home, where Julia’s portrait hangs on the mantle, where she comes and goes but leaves no trace of herself, where Magnus is healing. She’s never earned it.

She had one chance, and she’s already lost it. She resigns herself to saying goodbye to the quiet future she’d imagined despite herself, warm and happy in the whitewashed walls of this cabin.

She’s made too many ghosts to haunt this home, and her mistake was coming here and thinking she could explain away their memories and her guilt.

“M… Maureen and I,” she says quickly, her voice low and urgent. “Maureen, she used to know people in the militias, in the—in the Councils, the Sterlings, people with power. When the revolution started, w-we were asked to work with a shadow militia that would supply you, to give you weapons and, and wh…whatever you needed.”

Magnus’s face goes frightfully blank. His mouth thins and his jaw tightens as his hands shake around the mug in his palms. Tea slops over his hands and across the floor.

“Maureen said no, she said she’d refused before during the Relic Wars and she was going to refuse again, but I’d just come from Raven’s Roost, I bought—I bought a bench from you for her garden, I don’t know if you remember meeting me, but I’d come and- and I’d seen you give a speech with Julia and I _had_ to help you and there it was, a chance, right at my feet, the world provided and I _knew_ we had to, and I—I’d promised to make you happy again, Magnus,” she pleads. “It had been so long, I’d given up on everything, but there was something I could _do_ for you. Finally, I could at least make good on that promise, I could help you be happy.”

“And I…. I knew, I knew Maureen was… she was so, oh, Magnus, I knew she trusted me above anything else, and so I convinced her to come out of hiding from Ka—from the man you were fighting, because she was fighting him too, and, _oh_ , there was a Relic involved back then and it’s all such a mess, I’ve made a mess of telling you,” she cries. She covers her mouth with her hands and shakes her head, continuing despite the tears burning in her eyes and the nausea rising in her throat. “I made a mess of everything again, I’m so… I’m so sorry.”

Magnus doesn’t answer her, so Lucretia keeps going:  “S-so, she trusted me, and I convinced her and we went and helped your men develop a code that the other forces couldn’t crack and then Maureen and I developed…”

“The bombs,” Magnus says faintly.

He’s so pale under his beard and sideburns that his face almost looks blue. Fear seizes in Lucretia’s heart.

“Oh, Magnus, no,” she breathes, reaching for him the way they’ve been reaching for each other the past year and a half. The way she had just touched him moments before, just a hand on his shoulder, something to ground them both.

He recoils from her, hand swinging out to slap her fingers from him, the mug falling from his fingers and shattering across the floor.

“You made those fucking bombs,” he snarls at her. He’s never turned this face on her, but she’s seen it before. He’s furious, mad with grief. “The _firebombs_ , Lucretia, _you_ — “

“ _I_ did not,” she hisses bitterly, twisting her fingers into her pants as she hangs her head. “The _flash_ bombs _Maureen_ and I made were just a burst of light and some smoke, a mild concussive—they were _not_ supposed to be fatal. But there was a spy in the militia that drafted us, or maybe we were all used, Bain, Maureen, and I—I honestly don’t know, but we were told the blueprints were misplaced, were lost for a few hours, that they were found under a table in the development lab, and at the time, we didn’t—”

“You lost the blueprints and you didn’t do anything?! You knew those things could hurt people and you didn’t do anything?!”

He’s on his feet now, gaping down at Lucretia before pacing back and forth in front of the sofa, hands in his hair. “You made—God, gods, _Julia_ … Julia and Steven—the whole… all the guild members, my friends. You—you and your wife, you… those bombs, Lucretia, this place was still on fire ten days later,” he says, his voice cracking. “I smell it still, I hear it, there were still people crawling out and I see them still— and you never… you never did anything! You never _said_ anything— not even when you helped—oh, _god_ , do you, did you even—do you even care?”

“We didn’t know,” Lucretia whispers. “I just… we just wanted to—we wanted to help. You were so happy here, and I wanted to help you, I wanted to help you Magnus, not… I didn’t want to do this. I wanted to help Maureen, too—get her some closure—and she was sick for weeks, she was never the same after—don’t say we didn’t do anything, don’t say we didn’t care. Of course we cared. Of course I care.”

“Like fuck you did!” he roars.

Muffin scrambles off of her lap in fright, skittering away from them both. Beside her, Johann starts to growl deep in his throat.

“It was the Relics all over again for me,” she says, “Magnus, it was just like then, I—”

“At least the Relics were doing some good for this world, all you did was make more weapons of mass destruction.”

Lucretia recoils in shock, blinking rapidly. Her hands flutter nervously in the air for a moment before she clutches them to her chest. “I just wanted to help you, Magnus,” she says, her voice small and tremulous. “I just wanted you and Julia to have your lives. It was a mistake, I know, I was selfish, but all I wanted—”

“You wanted to make me depend on you,” he snaps. “You just couldn't deal with the fact that I found something else, that I wasn't some empty ghost of a person missing what I didn't know I had, like, like the others, that I wasn’t Barry, that I didn’t try to hold onto you—it wasn't enough to take everything from me once, was it, Lucretia—you had to do it again and again and _again_.”

 “Magnus, _no_ , I—I wanted you to have your life, I… I wanted to give you and Maureen a second chance and, I, no, no, _no_! That was never it; I _never_ begrudged you Julia once. I wanted to help you,” she repeats helplessly. “Please, listen to me—”

“You don't know when to leave things alone! Fuck, Lucretia! You, you didn't tell me, why didn't you tell me? Why now? Why—why _now_ , when I—when I, you, I… I trusted you; I _loved_ you, and now you… why did you _do_ that? Why did you _wait_?”

She sucks in a breath and holds her hands up in placation.

“Magnus, I can’t pretend I shouldn’t have sat on this the way I have,” she says shakily. “I just saw how you were struggling and I couldn’t bear to put this on you then, and now… now, I couldn’t not tell you, I—I think about it all the time, I can’t sleep because of it, I couldn’t bear you not knowing because I love you, Magnus, I—“

“Stop making everything about you! You're not the center star of everything and it drives you fucking nuts, doesn't it?! You killed an entire town, you killed _Julia_ , and all you have to say is that you only told me because you, you fucking don't want to feel guilty at night?”

 He laughs and shakes his head. Lucretia doesn’t think she’s ever seen him this distraught or wild—she knows he has it in him, she’s seen the edges of it, but he’s always kept himself under control. For her, for the mission, the team; for the other Reclaimers, for his friends, for himself. He swings back around to face her, cheeks spotted red with anger.

“You _should_ feel guilty—You took my life from me, _twice_!” He shakes his head again, tugging on his hair. “Is… is this what this is? Are you working on a third time, because everything’s calm now? Because there’s no more high to chase? Is that why Maureen Miller left you?! Because you meddle in everything for your own ends?! To make it about you? Because good! Good for her, you don’t deserve to be—you can’t stop manipulating people for five seconds, can you, and she figured it out—she figured it out and, what, were you using her too, did you lie to her the whole time, did you just, you didn’t just stumble upon her did you, you stepped into her life and made her complicit in your fucking circus and she left you because you manipulated her into killing all those people like some ruthless bully—gods, Taako was right, you aren’t capable of compassion anymore. You never were, were you, not since you realized you liked the attention we gave you after that year.”

Lucretia is stricken by the fury in his voice, the way he looms, suddenly bigger in his anger. She barely even can hear him over the static roaring in her ears. His words fall heavy against her, onto the scale of her heart, and finally something tips over, finally something breaks.

This is the last straw, and the realization numbs her with shock.

Everything up until now, she can handle. She’s heard it herself, knew it was coming, but what he’s leveled at her is more than she can recover from.

 _Taako was right_.

_Ruthless._

She is on the floor of the dais, a sword pointed at her— he remembers it now, all of it, all of the cycles and their fights and their victories. He remembers her, but it is Taako who he defends. She’s in the laboratory in the ship, magic backlighting Barry’s and Lup’s faces, and she’s trying to defend herself, but he doesn’t offer her support until it’s too late, until she’s already lost the argument. She’s young, young, younger, and she is in the background, unable to speak up as they argue about the fate of an entire civilization. She is older, and all that she has built is gone in one fight, her home lost to her again. Maureen is gone, but her words remain.

_You’re ruthless, Lucretia. And that scares me._

She’s startled, she’s hurt. She is both her younger self, the young woman who let herself dream that she had a future of love waiting for her once they found a way to rest their weary bones and end their fight. She is her younger self, an older woman who knew that there would be rough battles ahead, but that she had someone who cared for her at the end of them, in the arms of someone she made her home. She is herself, now, just moments before, who had hoped that she hadn’t misread the signs, that she hadn’t let this rest too long, that Magnus could find it in him to forgive her. That she was loved enough to be forgiven, that he cared enough about her to listen to her through his anger.

_You’re two for two here, Lucy. Two families you destroyed._

She’s all of these things at once, and she is tired. She is so tired of being let down, of having her hopes taken from her.

A part of her knows he’s just spitting out what he’s heard about her, what the others have said—Lucas, Taako, Barry, Davenport. A part of her is aware that he’s throwing out these things because he’s hurt, but she’s tired.

Lucretia hadn’t realized how much she’d depended on Magnus’ forgiveness. And now, she’ll be alone again because she hung her life on that tenuous forgiveness.

She is tired.

She’s so tired of being alone, but she’s even more tired of the vitriol that has been directed at her for the past two years.

She is tired, and she is angry.

 _The only one who can make your peace for you is you_ , Merle said. She’s not sure if this is what he meant, but she’s furious. She’s tired of being treated like this, she’s tired of being diminished into a version of herself that is her mistakes, and she’s finished. She doesn’t want forgiveness anymore; she just wants to be treated like a person.

Lucretia is silent; Magnus looks at her. He doesn’t see her, instead, he sees the Director—stern faced and tight jawed, her eyes fierce. He sees the woman who screamed and snarled at the Hunger, the most powerful woman in the planar system—how quickly he’s forgotten that face.

“ _How dare you_ ,” she hisses. Her mouth trembles—he’s not sure if it’s in anger or to hold back tears. She stands up, back straightening as she stretches to her full height. “How dare you! Of all people, I—I’d thought that—even if you were angry—I thought you would be _better_ than this!”  

Her voice shakes and cracks and she stomps her foot once, eyes shining bright.

“I’m done,” she announces.

“You don’t get to be done,” he snaps before he really can think otherwise. “You are not done! You don’t get to fuck off after this—”

“I refuse!” she shouts, “I refuse, I’m done. You’ve said _enough_ , you’re _done_. I will not let you, I won’t just let you, I’m so _sick_ of being everyone’s scapegoat for all their bad luck and decisions—I’m done! Goodbye, Magnus!”  

She sees Muffin under the sofa. She leans down and scoops the dog up into her arms. “And I’m taking my dog!”

She turns her back on Magnus and stomps towards the door, ceramic grinding under her boots as she splashes across the tea puddle.

“Get back here!”

“I’m leaving,” she says evenly. “You don’t ever have to see my heartless, ruthless, manipulative face ever again. Enjoy your life with the ghost of your wife, Magnus, I’m done. No more. _Please,_ no more.”

She hears his intake of breath and she fumbles with her scarf, struggling to keep Muffin in her arms and the scarf around her neck at the same time.

“Lucretia,” Magnus says. His voice is hoarse and soft, and she almost stops right then. She wants to stop, wants to turn to see why he sounds like that, wants to ask, but she’s so angry she’s hot all over, eyes burning and her throat tight. Muffin squirms in her grasp, whining and snapping at her sleeves.

She aches. She can stop. She can stop and turn around; she knows that tone of voice better than anything. She knows it because she’s once begged someone to stay with it, too.

_Maureen, don’t do this to us—Mar, what did I do, what did I do to lose your trust?_

She understands now, why Maureen had to keep going.

“Lucretia, I’m sorry,” Magnus says. “Please stay. Just give me a moment to—I’m angry, Julia, Steven, I, they were taken from me, you _helped_ take them from me, surely you—”

“I’m not staying for an encore of the Lucretia is heartless show,” she snaps. She straightens and adjusts Muffin in her arms.

“Lucretia, I love you,” Magnus says. “I love you, I didn’t mean it—I, you have to understand, that’s… Julia, she, I love her still, it still hurts, I…”

“You don’t love _me_ ,” she says, feeling all of her hundred and fifty something years all at once. “You just didn’t want to be lonely anymore.”  

“Are you just going to walk away from it all again now that it’s not going smoothly?” he shouts. “I don’t go along with your barrier, you wipe us from the world—I don’t instantly forgive you for having a hand in this, and you leave?”

“Yes,” Lucretia says, mouth shaking as she lets the tears come. “That’s exactly it.”

And she does; she wrenches the door open and walks out. She hears the crash of something being thrown as the door swings shut behind her, but she doesn’t run. She walks as evenly as she can without seeing, muscle memory guiding her to the transportation sigil on the walkway. She kneels down, keeping a tight grasp on Muffin as she wriggles it up out of the dirt. She takes it with her as she walks through the portal—she won’t need it anymore.  

She’s alone again.


	23. Reform, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote a bit about the last chapter [here](http://bluecoloreddreams.tumblr.com/post/167324636324); thanks to all over at the WDA who looked over this!

Lucretia is not proud of it, but she lets the anger take over the second her feet hit the floor of her apartment.

All of it, the decade of bottled up frustration, the past year and a half of anger and hurt, guilt, anxiety; every single improper thing she’s thought, but never expressed comes pouring out of her in a tidal wave of unbridled, violent fury:

_They wouldn’t even **try** first, not even Magnus? No one trusted, her even though she’s proven herself, why why why? It isn’t like it used to be—she’s no longer some shrinking wallflower, incapable of doing anything but hide. But they shut her down, wouldn’t even think of escalating plans—no, Lup has to be showy, and Barry has to play along, and no one **listens** no matter how hard she fights. _

_And now Lup has gone, disappeared under the weight of it, and they won’t admit they made a mistake? Not one of them looks her in the eye for months—no one knocks on her door, no one comes for her, no one asks or apologizes or asks if she wants to help at all. They just **let** her slip away, one hundred years and not a single damn one of them realizes what she’s up to, not even Magnus, who’s locked himself away from her. Even though he swore he loves her, he swore he’d try, swore he’d protect her, knew her ticks and signs and tells, and he should have known.  She is angry that he just let her slip away from them like that. _

_She’s angry that he spent his time locked up in his quarters carving rather than talk to her. She’s angry that he saw her, that his last coherent memory of her before the static takes him is betrayal. She’s angry that he made her feel guilty._

_Barry would rather die than trust her. Barry disappears and she can’t find him, and she’s frustrated. She’s angry that they underestimated her Relics, angry that she’s stuck._

_Wonderland; she is so inadequate. She loses her youth, her looks, her luck, her time, her victories._

_Maureen, Maureen, too wrapped up in her research to see her, and then had the gall to call her distant. Maureen who called her ruthless. Maureen who knew better, who still wanted the Relics. Lucas who holds a child’s grudge with an adult’s venom. Taako, Davenport, Barry. Magnus._

She blindly throws the stone with the teleportation circle—it crashes against the wall, knocking a few pictures from the frame. The resulting crash is pleasing—she feels like some of the anger seeps from her in the shattering of glass.

She swings her hands out and slams a vase to the ground. A lamp. She rips pillows from her bed and throws them at the wall. Slings her sheets and punches her fist through her mirror.

And like she did nearly two years previously, after the disastrous Candlenights where they retrieved the Stone but not Maureen or Lucas, she sinks to the floor, clutches her hand, and weeps.

Muffin slinks out from hiding and she’s hit with a wave of fresh guilt.

“I’m sorry,” she tells her dog. “I’m sorry—“

She seals her wounds and cleans her hand of blood before she gathers Muffin in her arms and just sits.

The dog laps at her face as she sobs into her fur, and slowly she quiets.

She sits with her face damp with dog saliva—because Muffin keeps licking the snot and tears on her face—and just sits in horrific numbness as what happened fully sinks in.

She fumbled the delivery, and now Magnus wants nothing to do with her.

Not that she really wants anything to do with him now, but it still hurts. He’s been such a steady influence in her life—even during the interim away from her family, she still saw him, still thought of him; the promise of having her family back held her fast for so long.

And now, and now…

Love cannot fix all of life’s problems—she knows this, far too well. Maureen taught her that, but despite knowing, Lucretia had become complacent, optimistic. Perhaps it’s the time with Lup and Barry, watching their love story unfurl across a century, watching the love mark them so deeply that it transcended death. She’s wanted that, she’s wanted it since she saw it, wanted it before she even knew that it was what she wanted. She’d failed the first time with Magnus, and then again with Maureen, but she’d thought… she thought the universe had given her something good again.

She’d been handed a second chance and she blew it.

But no—no, she’d never _really_ had that chance. She’d taken it under false pretenses, and now her own failings have bitten back. She should have told him, she could have told him before he was even inoculated, really—it would have been easy enough to just leave out their past entirely, and told him when all she was to him was the Director, slightly shady and entirely expected to have embroilments with other secretive organizations and shadow movements. Spared herself so much hurt.

Spared herself so much _hope_.

And _now_ what? Now what does she do, now that her family has shrunk yet again? Now that the steadiness in her life is gone?

She sits.

“Fuck,” she whispers. “I don’t have dog food.”

She gets up slowly, joints aching and her feet screaming in protest as blood rushes back into them. She doesn’t even know what sort of dog food to feed Muffin—Magnus had taken care of all of that, promised to set her up with a care package once Muffin was ready to come home with her.

Like that’s going to happen now.

She sighs and scrubs a hand over her face tiredly. The Fantasy Costco might have something, even if it’s gouged to hell and back because of her no dogs policy. She conjures up a lead from memory and hooks it around Muffin’s collar.

“Okay kid, I know this is gonna be complex,” she tells her dog. “But do not run off the goddamn moon.”

Muffin cocks her head and her tongue lolls out.

“Good enough,” Lucretia sighs.

She stands, chewing her lip. Half of her wants to call Lup, but she also doesn’t want to explain herself. No, the best thing to do is to go up and buy dog food. Distract herself by haggling with Garfield, maybe go to bingo. Try not to think about it too much.  Just keep moving. If she keeps going, she’s fine. It can’t catch up to her if she keeps moving.

She reaches up to adjust her coat, then swears again. She left it at Magnus’ cabin in her haste to leave.

She’s hit with a new wash of grief: She won’t be getting it back, and she hates that her mouth starts to tremble at the realization.

She rubs her eyes hastily, but another sob bubbles up from her chest. It’s such a trivial thing—she’s supposed to be better than this, older than this, more mature than this. But here she is, crying over a coat. It’s not her only coat, nor does it have any emotional significance to it.

It’s a coat, she has more, and she doesn’t wear the things Maureen gave her anymore because they’re so important to her. She could buy another just like it in any shop in town—it’s just that she left it with Magnus and she’s scared of what that might mean.  

Will he return it? Would he have someone _else_ return it? Or will he just throw it away? Will it show up mid-meeting so everyone knows, like how Maureen returned her things to her? Is everyone going to know again? Is she going to be subjected to yet another round of workplace murmurings and sympathetic looks?

She sits heavily on her stripped-down bed, sniffling as she wipes her face off with a pillowcase.

She decides that it doesn’t really matter.

“Okay, okay,” she hiccups, “Let’s… let’s try this again.”

She stands and picks up a second coat from her clothes and shrugs it on. She leans down and picks up Muffin, more for comfort than anything else.

Surprisingly enough, Muffin doesn’t squirm much; she just huffs dog breath in Lucretia’s face, then rests her snout on her shoulder, tail swishing and leaving a trail of white fur on the dark wool of Lucretia’s coat.

“Aren’t you a big sweet baby,” Lucretia murmurs happily, resting her cheek to Muffin’s head. “You are a little wild girl, but aren’t you sweet? Let’s take you to the moon, huh? Which you absolutely must _not_ run off of. Not even once.”

She adjusts Muffin in her arms and carries her outside to the park where Avi had collected her earlier that morning. She chews on the inside of her lip, waffling a moment about going through with her plan—he’ll surely ask her why she’s not being picked up at Magnus’ place, and surely, surely, he’s going to ask how her visit went. But she can’t just teleport into the Bureau—now that they’re no longer a shadow operation, security is stricter than ever (not that she thinks that anyone is going to murder her in her office, but it wouldn’t be the first time if someone _tried_ ).

“It’s gonna be okay,” she tells herself. Muffin barks loudly in her ear, wriggling as she catches sight of other pedestrians. Lucretia laughs and sets her down, keeping a firm grip on her leash as Muffin starts to run in circles in the snow beside her.

She summons a sphere and waits.

She squirms throughout the entire ride upwards, her growing tension made worse by Muffin pitching absolute fits in her lap and silence from the intercom.

What if they already knew? What if Magnus was up there, what if he told them all, what if, what if, what if?

She exits into the hangar with her mouth in her throat and Muffin tugging at her wrist and howling unhappily. She scoops her up again and holds the puppy to her chest, fingers rubbing slow circles into her fur.

“Avi?” she calls. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, uh, sorry,” Avi calls, sounding muffled. She peers around the hangar and finds him rolling out from a cracked sphere. “Technical difficulties, someone got stuck in here, and Killian just broke it rather than letting me figure—oh wow that’s a _dog_.”

She laughs shrilly. “Yes, this is Muffin.”

“But, uh, there’s no dogs on the moon?”

“One dog,” Lucretia corrects. “She’s mine.”

“Did Magnus give her to you?” Avi questions, holding out his hand to Muffin.

“Ah. After a fashion,” Lucretia says uneasily. “If he asks, this dog is mine.”

“Um. Did you _steal_ a dog, ma’am?”

“Not technically stealing,” Lucretia murmurs. “I did take her before I was supposed to, but she was for me.”

“I… do I want to know?” he laughs, scratching behind Muffin’s ear. “Did you just decide she was cute and run?”

“Sort of,” Lucretia sighs. “Avi, I don’t wish to talk about it. I’m going to the Fantasy Costco, is there anything that’s needed for bingo night?”

Avi shifts uncomfortably at the change in Lucretia’s tone from conversational to her official Director voice. He draws his hand back from Muffin’s head and folds his hands behind his back out of habit. “Not that I know of, ma’am? Might could bring more drinks or some chips, if you’d like.”

Lucretia nods and strides out of the room. Avi waits until he hears the door between the domes seal shut before hitting the communications key on his bracer.

“Killian, there is a dog and the Director is _upset_ , no— not the sphere! I don’t even _know_ , but there is a _dog_. Something’s happened; see if you can head her off before bingo? _I don’t know_! See if _you_ can figure it out!”

* * *

In the semi-darkness of Lucretia’s apartment, Killian huffs a sigh.

“I could kill him,” she finally growls. “Gonna kill him.”

Carey looks over at her, tongue darting out briefly. “Don’t. You’re gonna wake her,” she sighs. She taps a claw quietly against the floor and Killian listens to the rhythm intently.

_It’d make her sad if you hurt him._

Killian huffs and rolls her eyes, then gestures towards the faint outlines of the mess they were greeted with once Carey picked the lock on the door. She taps a quicker message, rough with impatience, to the floor: _Sadder than this?_

They both glance towards Lucretia’s limp shape on her bed, a sad curl of a woman and dog.  

Carey picks up a piece of broken ceramic, tracing the rough edges as she thinks. She stands from her nest of blankets next to Lucretia’s bed and makes her way over to the sofa. She plops herself into Killian’s lap and starts tracing in Thieves’ Cant on her hand.

_Yeah. Have you ever seen her do that?_

Killian shakes her head. The message back is slower as she thinks.

_She holds together well._

They both sigh and survey the wreckage around them.

It’s not every day that one’s boss and mentor bursts into tears mid fantasy-bingo game (and _not_ from frustration), but several glasses of wine and a rough morning will do that to even the most pulled-together person. It will probably go down as the most disastrous game of bingo the Bureau has played since Lucas tried to make an automatic ball-reader to head off the rampant cheating issue two years previously.

They’re still not sure what triggered it, exactly, only that Killian heard a small gasp behind her mid-game, turned, and found Lucretia with her hands over her mouth, tears streaming down her face. Panic and pandemonium had ensued. 

After that, it had taken a lot more wine, privacy, and Fantasy Cosmic Brownies to coax Lucretia into telling them why she was upset.

It took another glass of merlot after Lucretia’s tremulous ‘ _Magnus and I fought_ ’ to pry out any more details. Lucretia, even as drunk as she was, had been tight lipped and had just categorized it as a difference in character—Killian and Carey know better than to stick their nose in deeper than that, but even as scant as the details were, Lucretia made them promise not to tell anyone.

Naturally, the entire inner circle of the Bureau knew by then—mostly because Avi and Leon had their ears to the door and _someone_ had to tell Pringles why he needed to _buy_ brownies. Which meant _someone_ had to tell Brad why they were submitting a receipt for two bottles of merlot and five boxes of Fantasy Cosmic Brownies.

Which meant that Carey and Killian had to get Lucretia off of the moon, leading to their current occupation of Lucretia’s completely trashed apartment with one just-as-trashed Lucretia and one horrifically over stimulated, but cute, puppy.

_What should we do?_

Killian shrugs at Carey’s question. “Dunno,” she says out loud. She’s not really sure how to express something like this in Cant. “What she lets us. She’s always been real cagey about her feelings. Knowing what we do now, I get it, but… I don’t even think Doc knew what was going on sometimes. She kept stuff real close to the chest.”

“Must kill you to see her upset like this.”

Killian shakes her head and rests her chin on Carey’s head, tapping her back thoughtfully. “Nah,” she says slowly, a grin spreading across her face. “Nah, this is real good. I’m glad. Let her tear down her shit, she’s earned it. I’m rootin’ for her.” 

* * *

Lucretia is awoken by a beam of sunlight directly into her eyes. She shifts and immediately regrets it, head pounding. She manages to throw her arm over her eyes as she groans.

“Morning, Boss,” Carey says, resting her chin on the edge of the bed.

“Fuck,” Lucretia manages. “What… oh god.”

Carey chuckles and pats her elbow softly. “You’re okay,” she says gently. “Me and Kil brought you home. She’s out walking your dog now, and getting some scones and shit for breakfast.”

“I’m sorry,” Lucretia says, feeling tears burn at her eyes. “I… that, you never should have to have… I should be more…”

“Nah,” Carey says. “We’re your lieutenants for a reason, and if the reason’s dragging your drunk ass home and making sure you’re doin’ okay, well. It’s not a bad gig, ma’am.”

“I’m supposed to be better than this,” Lucretia protests faintly. “I’m not supposed to, to get upset, I don’t have that right, I’m not _capable_ of it—”

“Now who told you that?” Carey huffs. “’Cause that ain’t right.”

Lucretia turns her head away from Carey and stares at the line of sunlight through her lopsided curtains. It makes her eyes water and her head pound, but it’s better than dissolving into tears again.

Carey is Magnus’ friend, she reminds herself quietly. If Carey knew, she wouldn’t be so supportive. It’s going to tear her employees apart, too. Carey will end up with Magnus, which will take Killian, and it’s an avalanche until she’s alone.

She can’t remember what she told them, only that the words had spilled from her, tasting like wine and sickly-sweet chocolate, unbidden after she’d burst into tears after looking at her duck and jellyfish patterned bingo card.

“Was it Lucas? Taako?” Carey presses. She pauses for a moment; “Was it Magnus?”

Lucretia’s breath hitches into a quiet sob and she shakes her head. “What… what would give you that idea?” she manages.

She sits up slowly, sending a fresh wave of throbbing against her skull. She drops her head into her hands.

“You said you two fought something awful,” Carey says gently. “Lemme get you some water.”

“I broke all my cups,” Lucretia warns.

“Then you’ll drink out of a bowl and like it.”

Lucretia snorts and shifts on the bed, patting around for her glasses. She slips them onto her face slowly, sighing as the room shifts into better focus.

“Well that’s, something,” she says, a smile twitching at her mouth.

“Gotta get that hydration goin’ ma’am,” Carey laughs, rustling through the cabinets for a small dessert bowl. She fills it at the small sink and brings it back. “Here y’go.”

“Thank you,” she murmurs, sipping slowly from the bowl. “You don’t have to be so formal, really.”

“It’s still real weird for me,” Carey admits. “Kil’s better with it, but I respect you lots, ma’am, feels weird to call you by name.”

“I’m not that respectable,” Lucretia chuckles, letting the bowl rest between her fingers in her lap. “Obviously. Look at me, all this. I’m just a person, Carey, it’s all right.”

Carey makes a disgruntled noise, tongue flickering out anxiously; she picks at an itchy scale on her wrist. “Yeah, I mean, of course you are? But, dunno. You’re our boss and all. But… would it help, if I called you that? Would you rely on us more?”

“I… Oh,” Lucretia murmurs.

“You let us help,” Carey says in a rush. “With the _Bureau_ , but not with personal things, and we, we worry is all. You gave us all that time off, even though it was hard for you—with the wedding, and, you gave us a place to _be_. Gave us meaning, even though it wasn’t all real at first, and… will it help you?”

“I… Carey, dear, I…” She fumbles on the feeling welling up inside of her. “I don’t…”

“I mean, we’re all like… friends, right? Like. Friendly, but—what I mean is that you’re our friend, too,” Carey says. “You just… you’ve got more than you think you do. Last night, you said you had nothing, but that’s not true.”

Lucretia blinks back the burning in her eyes. “I… don’t remember saying that,” she confesses.

She remembers _thinking_ it so fiercely that it aches—because what does she have now? Surely she’s going to lose it all now, now that Magnus is gone. He feels like the glue that held everything together, sure and steady, the first to extend a hand of forgiveness to her.

She looks down at the water in her bowl, surface trembling with her hands.

“I do,” Carey says. “And it’s not true. It hurt, that—that hurt Killian’s feelings, y’know?”

She scratches a little harder at her scales and sighs. “Not just hers. I don’t know, ma’am, you…” Carey sighs and shrugs. “Dunno. I just don’t think you should throw everybody out just ‘cause a few things went wrong?”

“You don’t know what went wrong,” Lucretia says. She sighs and drinks the rest of the bowl of water in a few large gulps, just so she wouldn’t have to keep talking.

She feels the anger from yesterday simmering underneath her skin, pounding in time with her heart and head. She feels stuck between accepting the friendship being offered to her and shoving it away—Carey will surely side with Magnus, no matter what she says now. Everyone will eventually find fault in her and despite how she tries to do the best thing, the fault will always be grievous enough to be her newest fatal flaw.

She is so angry that she’s let herself be picked apart like this for so long.

Carey remains silent save for a small hum of contemplation. Lucretia feels her gaze on her, like she’s studying her like a lock to be picked—she keeps her eyes trained on the askew curtains and the stream of sunlight coming through them. Her fingers tighten around the empty bowl of water, and she feels tears start to creep up on her again as her tension winds tighter and tighter in her exhausted body.

Carey takes a breath, the sort that’s a precursor to words, and is interrupted by the shrill sound of Lucretia’s stone of farspeech. It buzzes underneath her leg, where it must have fallen from her pants pocket as she slept.

She fumbles with it for a second before she touches the rune on the back. “Hello?”

“ _Lucy! How’d getting romanced go?”_

Lucretia freezes in horror, her face flushing hot at Lup’s voice. “Lup, no. Can you not?”

“ _Aw, are you embarrassed?”_

“Lup, no,” Lucretia protests once, then finds herself sobbing.

Carey snatches the stone from her hand as Lucretia folds over herself, forehead on her knees. “Lup? No,” she says firmly. “I don’t know where you get off on rubbing it in—did someone put you up to that?”

“ _Wait, what—who’s this? Is this, are you Carey? What are you talking about?”_

“She doesn’t know,” Lucretia manages. She tries to steady herself, breathing deeply, but she only ends up gasping and choking on another wave of tears. “I didn’t—I didn’t tell her.”

Carey inhales and climbs up to sit on the edge of the bed, tentatively putting a hand on Lucretia’s shoulders. “The boss and Magnus had a fight,” she says simply.

Lup swears and there’s a clattering on the other end. Her voice is muffled for a moment, low and urgent, and then clear again. “ _I’m coming over, where are you?”_

Carey gently taps Lucretia’s shoulder in a soft pattern. _Is that okay?_

Lucretia nods.

“We’re at her apartment in Neverwinter. Killian’s bringing in food, if you want to bring coffee or something?”

 _“I’ll be right there,”_ Lup promises, then hangs up.

Lucretia just cries harder.

Lup shows up not a little after Killian returns, stepping out of a glowing rift with a canvas bag in the crook of her elbow. She glances around the ruined apartment and whistles.

“ _Hooo boy_ ,” she sighs. “Lucy, hachi machi, this is some damage.”

Carey scowls at her but Lucretia manages a laugh from the sofa, where she’s wedged between Killian and Carey. “Says you.”

“Says me! Miss Ma’am, god, _honey_ ,” Lup says slowly, setting her bag on the floor.

Lucretia unfolds herself from the sofa and Lup steps to meet her, folding her wiry form around Lucretia’s almost instantly.

Carey watches uncomfortably as Lucretia shudders on a loud cry, Lup’s hand curling into her hair and against her lower back. It’s a movement that’s shockingly intimate and raw, and they both feel like they shouldn’t be watching at all.

Lup rocks Lucretia on their feet, her face pressed to Lucretia’s temple.

 “Oh, Lucretia, I’m so sorry,” Lup whispers. “What happened?”

“I told him,” Lucretia sobs. “I wanged it right up— I fucked up, I told him and he said I did it on purpose. I didn’t, but he said I did it because I wasn’t capable of leaving him alone—”

“He knows better,” Lup murmurs. “He didn’t mean that. You know he doesn’t, babe, he loves—”

Lucretia jerks and shoves Lup away. She stomps her foot on the ground; Carey’s reminded of all the times that she’d tapped her staff on the ground in irritation. “Don’t! Don’t you start with me! He meant it, he meant it and even if he didn’t, I refuse to keep going back to people who treat me like I’m a monster! He and Lucas and, and _Taako_ , all of them, I’m so tired of them telling me I’m heartless!”

Lup catches her elbows, holding her arms gently. “Lucretia, he was just angry, you know that’s all it was,” she soothes. “It was a big thing you told him, that was his home—”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Lucretia shouts. “I knew that, I knew it and that’s why I told him! Why don’t I get to be upset, Lup, why don’t I have the right to be upset!”

Lup grips her arms as Lucretia tries to tug them away. “That’s, no, that’s not—but Lucretia you can’t just, he’s upset, you have to give him time—”

“No!” Lucretia twists herself away from Lup and backs away from her. “No, no I don’t.”

Killian sets down her pastry and stands, stepping up behind Lucretia. “Lup, back off,” she says, putting a hand on Lucretia’s shoulder. “You’re upsetting her more.”

“You don’t know what’s going on,” Lup snaps. She turns her attention back to Lucretia. “Hon, I know you were scared of this, but Magnus is a good guy and he loves you, if you just talk it out—”

“I get you have your cozy little century-long family, no-one-but-us-can-fathom-our-bonds thing going on, but I think we know more about her than you do,” Killian growls. “And I want you to back off.”

Lup balls her fists up and clenches her jaw, trembling for a second with anger. “Where the fuck do you get off telling me what to do? You know what’s best for her? Don’t be a moron! You never met her, then, there’s no fucking story that could tell you how happy we all were—how she was happiest with Magnus, so step the fuck back.”

“Oh, stop it,” Lucretia sighs, shrugging off Killian’s hand. “Both of you!”

Killian crosses her arms and scowls at Lup, who closes her eyes and pinches her nose in exasperation. Her lips move silently as she counts and then she sighs, long and deep, posture sagging as her anger drains away. “Fine, fine, whatever,” she mutters. “Cha’girl’s good. We’re all good.”

“I mean,” Carey says slowly, looking up from where she’s been feeding Muffin bits of an egg biscuit. “I don’t see why she _can’t_ go talk to Magnus. People say stuff they don’t mean all the time, and… It’s just, it was like this with Maureen, too. You two had one fight and it was over, or… I guess. That’s what it looked like.”

Killian shakes her head and turns towards Carey. “Babe, no—”

Lucretia laughs, high and trembling. “What it _looked_ like?! I’m tired of trying and getting burned—why is it only me who’s not allowed to be hurt? Why do I have to keep going back to these people, over and over even though I’ve tried to make amends? Everyone knows what happened, so I would prefer for the blame not to be put on me, when I _did_ try and _she_ just went and upended my things across my desk!”

“Boss, uh,” Killian mutters, “We never… Me and Boyland never, Brad never either, we didn’t tell people. Figured it was personal and you’d talk to us about it in time, if you wanted.”

She pauses and shrugs, rubbing the back of her neck. “You never did, so we just… let it lie, yanno? But you’re right, you don’t deserve to be treated like this,” she says, shooting a glare at Lup. “Doc Miller shouldn’t’ve done that and, and Magnus,” she continues, looking over at Carey; “Magnus shouldn’t have hurt you like he did. Or Lucas. Or Taako. Doesn’t matter how it started or escalated to this.”

“Oh,” Lucretia says faintly. “Oh… I… I didn’t mean to insinuate I thought you would gossip, just… I thought Lucas…”

“Lucas might be an ass,” Carey says from the sofa. “But I don’t think he wanted to talk about it either. I’m sorry, Lucretia, I didn’t know.”

 Lucretia sighs slowly and runs a hand over her face. She turns away from them and steps towards her bed, sitting heavily on the edge of the mattress. “No, no, I’m sorry, all of you, I’ve…  I’m obviously not myself.”

“S’okay,” Killian murmurs. “You don’t always have to be alright.”

Lup clenches her jaw and swallows hard. “I brought… I brought stuff for cocoa,” she announces.

Lucretia watches as she stiffly gathers her bag up off the floor and treads towards the small kitchenette, stepping around cushions and papers and broken plates. She sees the awkwardness in the lines of Lup’s shoulders, in the sag of the sofa as Killian settles back down beside Carey, in the way she breathes.

She’d known, deep down, that what Lup wanted the most was to return to how it was before—because to Lup, she’d left, died, and spent an indeterminate amount of time away, unaware of what had changed outside of the confines of her magical prison. To be trapped, to be kept sane by the promise of the family that awaited her, to return to find it all gone… Lucretia can’t fathom how difficult it must be.

“Fuck,” Lup swears, her voice cracking on the force behind the word. “Did you break all the cups?!”

Lup’s heart is in the right place, she knows, but it’s also firmly in the past. Lucretia stands and moves to her side, resting a light touch against her back.

“Lup,” she says softly. “Lup, it’s… it’s not okay, but it will be.”

Lup looks at her with wide eyes, and then bursts into tears. “It’s my fault, I’m sorry—”

Lucretia tugs her into her arms and shakes her head, a new wave of tears building up in her throat. “This one is all on me,” she whispers.

“If I didn’t go buckwild renegade on you guys, none of this would be like this! I just, I kept waiting, I kept hoping I’d come back and it would all be the same, I just want it _back_ ,” Lup cries. “I made it worse, Lucy—”

“No you didn’t,” Lucretia mumbles, holding Lup as tightly as she can. “How could you have, when you made it so much better for me? Lup, if you hadn’t gotten into my business, told me the things you did, helped me and encouraged me, I don’t even want to think about how much _worse_ yesterday could have been for me.”

“I don’t believe you,” Lup sniffles against her shoulder.

“I’m serious,” Lucretia says. “Lup, it’s over and it’s done, and I—there are things I regret, there are so many things that I wish I had never done, won’t ever do again, will always be sorry for, but…”

Lucretia shakes her head, voice shaking with bewilderment as she gives a soft laugh. “Lup, god, I don’t think I would change it. You’ve been right, Lup, all this time, and it sucks, it sucks a lot! There’s so much suck—”

“Please stop saying suck,” Lup says, snickering. “Ew, I blew snot on you.”

“You are disgusting and being written out of my will.”

“No, go on talking about suck,” Lup prompts, wrapping her arms around Lucretia’s waist.

Lucretia sighs and squeezes Lup, taking comfort in her weight and warmth against her. “I was saying. I was saying, god. I’m angry and I’m upset, I’m hurt and I don’t want to talk to him… for a long time, I don’t know, but, I’m tired of pretending I’d do something different if I was given the chance, Lup. I wouldn’t. So much _good_ came from my mistakes, despite so much bad coming from them too, and I’m tired of pretending there was no good from it. I apologized, I’m done. The rest is on everyone else. If Magnus, Taako, any of them—if they don’t want to forgive me, that’s fine. But they don’t get to treat me like shit anymore.”

She tips Lup’s face up off of her shoulder; Lup slouches so their foreheads touch. Lucretia blinks and grins at Lup, holding her face between her palms. “It’s not ever going to be the same, Lup, and that’s _fine_ , it’s going to be fine, and I honestly believe that.”

“But you and—”

“I am having a moment,” Lucretia says sharply, nudging her head against Lup’s. “Please.”

A laugh bubbles up out of Lup, wet and hiccupping as she presses herself close, nodding. “Sorry, sorry,” she snickers. “You really— you really feel like that, Lucy?”

Lucretia studies the intricacies of Lup’s face up close—damp eyelashes and thick smatterings of freckles and the flakes of gold eyeliner against the darkness under her eyes. Once, Lup had been so sure of everything that it had seemed like magic to Lucretia. The magic of a century has worn away the steadiness and left something shaking and thin and worn away underneath the deep brown of Lup’s eyes—Lucretia knows the same weathering shows in her own face, and like driftwood, it is something wondrous in its own right.

It is strange how sure she feels now, looking at Lup’s searching eyes. She might not be sure tomorrow, or even a week from then; she might not even be sure of it an hour from then. 

But she has more than she ever thought she would have—even after what she did, after Maureen, after all of it.

“I do,” Lucretia answers. “You told me it’d be fine, you doof, I’m gonna make sure I’m okay. Now. How about cocoa; I’ll bust some spell slots on fixing cups if it’s yours and not a mix.”

Lup scoffs and pushes away, hand over her chest. “How dare you insinuate that I would be so base to feed you _premixed hot chocolate_?” 

Killian snorts from the sofa. “She’s got you there, boss.”

Lucretia smiles. “I’ll grab my wand then.”

* * *

Surprisingly enough, Lucretia finds herself mostly okay. She cried herself out between drunken bingo and crying with Lup, and then again later the next day after scolding Carey for feeding Muffin people food, sounding so much like Magnus that she couldn’t help the tears.

Lup, Carey, and Killian stay with her the first two nights; on the morning of the third, work pulls Carey and Killian away—Lucretia wouldn’t let them use her as an excuse to skip their weekly Monday morning meeting with the Bureau’s investors.

Lup remains, darting in and out the entire weekend and well into the week.

Lup never stays gone for long; she’ll leave for a few hours at a time, returning with the faint smell of sulfur and burnt sugar. Lup helps pick the pieces of her apartment back up, takes her out to the Fantasy Pottery barn for a new rug after an unfortunate accident with Muffin and buys her new sheets ‘to jazz the place up’.

Lucretia sends her home after four days—she loves Lup to pieces, and she’s grateful. But she has to cope on her own eventually, and it’s hard to do work with Lup hovering around and being, well, Lup.

After breakfast on Tuesday, she sends Lup on her way and turns to face her most pressing dilemma.

Muffin cocks her head at her and barks.

“I know,” Lucretia answers. “Puppy school is today.”

Muffin barks again and promptly falls over as she tries to chew on her backside.

On one hand: Muffin needs to be trained. She’s cute, but a little wild with instructions, but Lucretia knows she _can_ behave if she’s taught to—she can’t sit or stay for shit, but she can shake hands like no one’s business. The school that Magnus’ friend runs is one of the few reputable trainers on the continent due to the novelty of the idea, and Muffin knows the trainers and dogs there.

On the other hand: Magnus.

She chews her lip and sighs as she kneels down, running a fond hand across Muffin’s belly. She’d acted rashly, just _taking_ Muffin like she had. But Muffin was hers, a gift for her, regardless of how their relationship had soured.

But she still took the dog. And Avery is Magnus’ friend, even more than Carey and Killian and Lup are. All Avery knows her as is the puppy friend, the totally-not-girlfriend—which, she’s absolutely mortified to recall. If Avery knew enough to tease Magnus, would she know enough to… to what?

To be told? To know? Whatever Magnus might tell her, Lucretia knows she definitely wasn’t in the wrong for putting a stop to his anger. Maybe she was a little wrong for taking Muffin, but she won’t admit it.

“I refuse to feel bad if people know,” she whispers, mouth trembling. Muffin rolls over and whines, planting two paws on her knees and leaning up. Lucretia laughs and rubs the back of her hand over her damp eyes. “I know, you want me to stop being weepy too. Same here.”  

She ruffles the fur around Muffin’s head, grinning as she hops in place, shaking her head back and forth to position Lucretia’s hands better. She gently moves her from her lap and stands, grabbing the harness and leash she’d bought that weekend from a legitimate pet store.

She gets Muffin situated and grabs her own work bag. “Now, Muffin, I have to go to work while you’re in puppy school,” she says solemnly, hooking the lead onto the harness. “Do not go home with anyone.”

Muffin runs to the door and starts barking. Lucretia sighs and pulls on a coat and a scarf and wraps the lead up securely in her hands in preparation of Muffin’s proclivity towards running.

The walk to Dog Haven is a little longer than Lucretia remembers, and as she turns the corner, anxiety bubbles up in her gut.

Magnus spends so much time here—she knows he works here most days when he’s not picking up work as a carpenter or with the Bureau. There’s every chance in the world that he could be in there. That she has to come face-to-face with him.

She’s not ready for that. She doesn’t know what she’d do—her stubbornness says to ignore him, her gut says to run in the opposite direction until she can’t, the ache in her chest wonders if maybe it could all be sorted out. The reality of it is that she’d probably just cry in front of everyone and surrender her dog.

She grits her teeth and strides through the front door, exuding every ounce of non-existent confidence she has, spine straight and her steps even.

But Magnus isn’t there—it’s just the usual motley assortment of dogs and people he’d always described, and Avery behind the front counter with a small pug in her lap.

“Oh, hey there,” Avery says, grinning at her. “Will you be able to stay for Muffin’s lesson today?”

“No, I have to go up and do a few meetings. Is it alright to just leave her?”

“Oh yeah, sure,” Avery says, flipping through some paperwork. “We’ll put her with her usual trainer when Magnus isn’t around. I just need your stone frequency to hail when lessons are done, since Magnus said you went ahead and took her home early.”

“He… did?”

“No shame in it,” Avery laughs, picking up a pen and shifting the pug in her lap. “Puppies win everyone over in the end, and she’s such a cutie. He seemed relieved that you took so well to her that you brought her home before she was fully trained. He was real concerned whether or not you’d like her in the beginning, you know?”

“I… well,” Lucretia stammers, taking the clipboard when Avery offers it to her. She writes down her frequency in a daze. “He… said I took Muffin?”

“Well, you don’t have to say it like you _stole_ her,” Avery laughs. “He just said you took her home sooner than he thought you would since she still has some piddle problems.”

“Oh, no, she’s been pretty good about that,” Lucretia says absently. “Only two accidents. She’s a smart girl.”

Avery stands and puts the pug puppy down, who waddles behind her as she circles the desk to take Lucretia’s lead. “We’ll call you when class is over! She can stay with the daycare if you can’t make it immediately, just let us know!”

“Thank you,” Lucretia murmurs, leaning down to scratch Muffin behind the ear. “Behave, little thing.”

Lucretia vaguely remembers waving goodbye to Avery as she leaves, but not if she says anything else. She feels like she’s underwater—everything sounds distant and muffled and her eyes can’t seem to focus on much of anything.

Before she knows it, she’s sitting in her office in the moonbase, her ride up a blur of tangled emotions.

She stares at her paperwork blankly, fingertips pressed to her temples as she rests her elbows on her desk. She can’t concentrate on the words—they blur with her vision, eyes unfocused as she dwells on what happened.

He just played it off like nothing happened. Where did he get off, smoothing it all over like she simply just took her dog home?

She sighs and runs her hands across her face, readjusting her glasses. She flips through her files for the day, unable to find the desire to pick up a single one. A scrap of paper catches her eye, and she tugs it out from the pile.

At first she’s unsure of why it caught her interest, but then she notices Magnus’ messy scrawl and she crumples it in her fist. She grabs the whole pile it was in, rifling through old files and picking up each one that had his signature on it. Invoices for wood, supplies, a correspondence with people from Ravens’ Roost. A list of things labeled ‘ _To ask Lucretia’_ on the back of a receipt.

She throws it aside in frustration, realizing she’s looking for his name next to her own like a child.

She’s never going to talk to him again—he doesn’t care, he’s already set it all up so they don’t have to cross paths again. She said he never had to, and he’s taking her up on it.

She isn’t sure why exactly she’s so furious. A part of her wants to pardon him for trying to smooth everything out, but the louder, more hurt, part of her rails against the effort entirely, livid with the idea that he’s just ignoring what happened.

Ignoring her.

Guilt surges through her, settling in the pit of her gut as she realizes that she wanted Magnus to make a scene about it. She wants to dig her heels in, argue with him, see him. She’s so used to Taako and Lucas’ brand of obnoxious anger that Magnus’ effort to keep them as far apart as they can leaves her cold and uncertain.

She thought he would have come around to see her by now. She thought that they were so tightly wound that he’d come back for another round. That he’d be back to apologize or ask for details or… something, anything.

But there’s just this instead—a polite reason to ignore her, to let things fall into oblivion.

Her fingers shake against her desk. She looks around her office, at the boxes still unsorted, the haphazard arrangements of books and journals, her efforts at cataloguing never truly finished, bland shelves and dusty plants. Paper everywhere, files and maps and reports and pages from books on every surface.

She is going to spend the rest of her life like this, alone in this mess of an office, thriving off of the attention people give her, and she feels sick from it.

Magnus wasn’t too far off then, was he?

She grips a pen tightly, forcing herself to open up a case report to annotate. Her mind swims and she’s relieved when there’s a brisk knock on the door.

“Come in,” she sighs, thinking it’s Brad or Leon. Instead walks Artemis Sterling, his arms full of scrolls and maps.

She tempers her urge to frown. “What can I do for you today, Lord Sterling? I wasn’t expecting a visit,” she adds, feeling a little petty and put-upon before the man even speaks.

“I’ve got a few new proposals for your venture,” he says without greeting.

She grits her teeth, fiercely reminded of Lucas in that moment—always barreling in and assuming that everyone’s time was free to give. She inhales and exhales slowly.

“All right,” she says instead of snapping at him to make an appointment instead.

He drops into the chair across from her desk without invitation, spreading out a map atop an open file. “We just arranged alliances with a few towns that have been holding onto the older ways of things—they realized their infrastructure was just shot to hell and back. This village here has been hit by drought and has no well systems, this one here had an unexpected crop blight—I’d like to send in people to dig wells and manage irrigation systems as well as…”

Lucretia tries to listen, but her mind is elsewhere.

She can’t focus on Lord Artemis. His voice drones on and on and it fills her with pins and needles. She wants to get up and shake the feeling from her arms and legs. But still he continues, and none of it permeates her consciousness.

Everything steals her attention—the pile of papers to the side, her notebooks, stacked precariously, her strew of quills and pens and brushes. The cast aside files with Magnus’ handwriting. Calendars and memos and half-written letters and missives. Scrap papers and sketches that will never be finished or make sense. Frustration pools up in her and she starts to shuffle things around.

“Um. I can, I can leave,” Lord Artemis offers, brow furrowing in frustration. “If reorganizing your desk is more important.”

“I’m sorry,” she sighs. “I just can’t seem to focus. Go on.”

“Well… if you insist. If you take a look at this map, the following areas are still…”

She looks at the map as he continues to outline areas that are in need of infrastructure repairs. She squints down at it, trying to make sense of his flourished cursive.

The clear square of desk sharpens her focus—if she only looks straight down. The teetering pile grabs her attention and halts her progress again. Did she ever go to that meeting? Did she remember to take crackers to a party? Did Johnson ever get reimbursed?

Why don’t these towns have basic well systems? Why haven’t they worked there sooner?  Why did these towns hold out for so long?

Did she mean so little to Magnus that he just brushed the fight off entirely? Why is she hungry for any of his attention, even after her hurt her?  Does she still love him—is it okay to still love him?

She slams her pen down and promptly pushes the layer of detritus on her desk off onto the floor.

She feels immediately better—if, however, she doesn’t look at the mess on the floor.

Lord Artemis gapes at her.

“Sometimes,” she says with as much dignity as she can muster. “That’s necessary in order to focus.” 

“I can’t help but think you’re not taking this meeting seriously,” he snaps.

“I’m doing my best, but you showed up with no warning, no preamble, _nothing_ , so forgive me if I’m not on the ball today, Lord Sterling,” Lucretia says as she pinches the bridge of her nose. “Leave your papers and I’ll let you know when I’ve looked over them. Next time, make an appointment.”

He sighs and stands from his chair. She stands as well and ushers him to the door. “Carey, Killian, will you two come here for a sec?” she calls.

Carey and Killian rise from their drafting table.

“Whatcha need, boss lady?” Carey asks.

“I am going to need some help,” Lucretia says, rolling up her sleeves. She pulls her wand out of her pocket and opens a Gate in the center of her office. “We’re going to throw as much shit as we can in that hole, I don’t care what it is. I want this office completely redone today.”

Carey and Killian exchange sly looks. Carey skitters past Lucretia and hops onto a chair, then leaps from the chair to the top of a bookshelf. “Don’t gotta tell me twice,” she says, starting to pull things from the top shelf. “This place makes me cross-eyed with how cluttered it is.”

“Everything?” Killian asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Most things,” Lucretia amends.

Killian shrugs and laughs, heading over to Carey’s chosen bookshelf, catching books as they’re tossed down.

Lucretia feels a sense of manic pride as one by one, things get tossed into the hole in the center of the room. She’s not sure which dimension she opened the Gate to, but she hopes it’s hitting Fate in the face.

She flicks her wand again, summoning up a mass of black tentacles to haul things off the shelves. Carey screeches as they appear, half in actual surprise, half in delight.

“Holy shit, boss!” Killian laughs.

Lucretia directs the tentacles towards her desk, using one particularly long one to sweep her desk completely bare.

The resulting crash has people crowding at her door. Leon puts his hands up and simply walks off. Robbie parks a good distance away and just watches, unwilling to risk getting roped into cleaning. Brad decides it’s probably in everyone’s best interest to venture inside.

“Um, ma’am, what’s going on here?”

“Cleaning,” Lucretia says briskly.

“You don’t seem to be _cleaning_ ,” Brad says uncertainly, treading carefully towards the pile by her desk. “You seem to be goofing—Hey! Don’t throw that away, ma’am! That’s this month’s employee survey!”

“It’s trash now,” Lucretia says flippantly, striding towards the pile. She picks up the offending papers and shoves  them at Brad. “Reprint and send them to me tomorrow morning.”

Brad gapes at her and Killian chuckles knowingly. Lucretia picks up a box from the foot of her desk and opens it, revealing several binders of meeting minutes.

She pages through one, sees Maureen’s name, then throws it straight into the hole.

She doesn’t need, or want, any of this. All of it is too painful to be around; these papers hold too many memories, too much pain, for her to be able to focus on anything at all. Anxious fury consumes her movements as she throws each carefully compiled record away.

When did her records do her any good anyway? All she ever did was get herself into trouble with them; all the past ever did was haunt her. Good riddance.

She’ll be able to think  and work much more efficiently without all this in her way.

“Can I throw this away?” Carey calls, waving a scrapbook-looking journal at her. “It’s pasted newspaper articles about the Grand Relics.”

“It can go,” Lucretia answers. It sails neatly over their heads and into the hole.

She comes across a box of fresh parchment—she directs a tentacle to set it aside before targeting a box of financial records.

“Madame, please, we need those papers,” Brad says, snatching yet another folio from the pile as he sidesteps a tentacle.

“Fresh starts are important,” Lucretia declares with a huff, smacking a tentacle away from her pile of clean parchment. “We’ve closed our important projects for the quarter; any remaining work can be resubmitted. I’m constructing a new filing system and moving the archives to a pocket dimension. There’s far too much clutter in here to concentrate.”

“ _Madame_ ,” Brad insists. “That would be an HR _nightmare_. How will our non-casters be able to access a pocket dimension! There’s no practical way to construct enough coinciding dimensions!”

“Dream away, bud, she’s got her heart set,” Carey laughs from atop her bookshelf. “Ma’am, minutes from the first meeting, filed still under the _Outstanding Balance_ branding?”

“Toss it, I have copies elsewhere.”

“Worker’s comp claims from the second quarter of last year?”

“Trash,” Lucretia confirms, sweeping an arm across her desk, sending several old pens, scratch sheets of paper, a mummified apple core, and several corks rolling into the roiling darkness at her feet. Each tentacle grasps a piece, then tosses its piece neatly into the Gate spell.

“You have no idea what you just threw away!” Brad shouts. “I have uncollected and unsigned paperwork you owe me from six months ago, Lucretia! From over a year ago! What on earth has gotten into you, I would never have thought you would act like this!”

Carey laughs from her bookshelf. Killian claps him on the shoulder as Lucretia ignores him, sweeping across her office to her shelves, tossing odds and ends into the spell field behind her.

“I’ve seen her do this before,” Killian chuckles.

“When?” Brad huffs, struggling to right the stack of documents in his arms. “We’ve been under the same employ for the same amount of time.”

“Nah, you got recruited six months after me, dude, and oh, god, the last time she was like this was because Doc Miller stood her up because she’d discovered how to clone a rare plant. She tore out the whole cave system we were using one night; the entire décor got changed to post modern minimalist. Took Doc a few hours to figure out why the chairs lost their pillows. She flipped her shit.”

Brad huffs. “She could just do her own home.”

“She has more control here,” Killian murmurs. She squeezes his shoulder. “Let her work it out her own way. I’d rather her be a pain in the ass than… Don’t you think this is better than before?”

Brad watches as Lucretia and Carey make a game out of throwing things into the tentacles and sighs. He rubs his temple and rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes… I suppose this is preferable to… yes.”

“She’s having fun, at least,” Killian says. “She just went dead last time and yanno… I couldn’t imagine having to go through it twice. I’d rather her get all angry.”

“It’s hard, losing someone,” Brad says distantly. “Once is too many times. But, he’s still around, maybe one day. And… even if he doesn’t, it’s… it’s possible to get back to something resembling normal.”

“Yeah,” Killian murmurs.  She pats Brad and shrugs. “Maybe he’ll come around. Don’t mean I won’t kick his ass.”

“Don’t get arrested, that’s extra paperwork.”

“Oh, I know how to break into places.”

“You know what, I don’t need to be culpable in that—Madame, no please don’t throw away the health reports from last year’s third quarter, _please_ —”

“I do what I want,” Lucretia says irritably, dropping the papers right into the grasp of a tentacle. “If it’s in my way, it’s going away.”

“Director!” Brad huffs. “Surely duplicates can’t hurt anything!”

“Nope, I’m starting my life as a minimalist.”

“Okay! Okay, fine, _I guess!_ If you need me, I’ll be in my office, organizing my paperwork by _filing_ it instead of throwing it away!”

There’s a moment of collective silence as Brad gathers his box of salvaged paperwork and leaves the office with an air of awkward, yet irritated, politeness that only he could truly pull off.

Killian looks over at Carey and Lucretia, then snorts. “Holy shit,” she laughs. “He’s mad.”

Carey starts to snigger behind her hand, and then Lucretia starts to laugh as well.

She leans back against a bookshelf as she laughs, slowly sliding to sit on the floor. She looks around her office, stripped to bare bones and a little more than wrecked; her gaze turns to Carey and Killian.

Carey holds out her hand for a high-five. “Fuck yeah, pissed off the Bradster.”

“I seem to be pissing people off a lot lately,” Lucretia laughs, reaching out to high five Carey. “Oh well. It’ll work out in the end.”

“Fuck yeah it will,” Killian says, grabbing them both in a tight hug. “So don’t worry. Brad’ll forgive, we’ll forgive. You’ll see, even this shit with Magnus, you’ll work through it ma’am, even if you have to feed him to the tentacles.”

Carey wrinkles her snout. “Ew,” she whispers. “Kinky.”

Lucretia laughs so loud she startles herself.


	24. Reform, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tadaaa!  
> Thank y'all for the patinence of waiting through two ship weeks, my rando life, and balancing QE with this! A big thank you to the WDA for editing (especially [epersonae](http://archiveofourown.org/users/epersonae/pseuds/epersonae) for the technical edits), putting eyes on this through the writing process for this chapter, and helping me realize what needed to be said.

He doesn’t remember anything but the sudden rush of white-hot anger; words pour from him without a thought. He doesn’t even know what it is exactly that he’s saying, other than that he’s using them like a knife, driving deep into the meat of her. He knows she’s afraid and that she hurts and he _relishes_ it, letting the words pour from him in a torrent of anger that he doesn’t even try to control.

She’s leaving—all he knows is that she’s leaving, and he begs, but she still goes. She goes with a steel spine and venom and he can’t stop the things he says even though he knows they’re hurtful. It’s not the clean break of death or the fuzzy fade to oblivious amnesia: it’s there, it’s sharp, and then she’s gone.

But she’s gone, and what he’s done finally catches up to him. He picks up a paperweight from a side table and throws it across the room, Johann barking loudly beside him.

But it’s like Johann is miles away; it’s like  _he’s_ miles away. Everything feels dull except for the ache in his chest as he gasps back a sob. Johann nudges under his arm, whimpering. He’s supposed to breathe now; he’s supposed to slip his fingers through Johann’s fur to ground himself. But it all spins away—Lucretia’s gone, Julia’s dead, Lucretia helped the revolution, she made the flames that consumed his life.

He smells the smoke; he hears the still-falling rocks. Hears the wind through the ravine, the rocks still crumbling and falling. Blue light, shimmering…  Lucretia, his Lucy, his wife, Julia…

And for a while, he knows nothing more.

* * *

He takes the dogs out when they ask, but not through the front door. Lucretia’s coat hangs by the door, along with the shattered glass like a barrier he cannot cross. There’s a sticky puddle of dried tea, marred with ceramic that he’s cut his feet on several times now.

He feeds them and puts down new water when he remembers. He drinks stale water and eats bread that’s long gone hard—but his stomach doesn’t want anything more, and when he thinks of even opening hisfridge, he finds his limbs feel heavy with exhaustion.

He sleeps in the cold living room, unable to bring up the effort to even light his fire. Johann curls up with him at night and whines, drawing the other animals to him. He stares into the darkness and wonders if Julia is still waiting for him.

Remembers the message, the promise that Kravitz gave him. Julia is there, and their bounty absolved, and he can see her again, one day in the future.

Would she wait for him now that he knows he courted the woman responsible for the method of her death? He wonders, for the first time in years, if she suffered. If she burned alive, if she was crushed, if it was instant or if it was slow; if she called for him. He’d promised her revenge once, at the base of the ruined trail to the Craftsman Corridor, he swore to avenge her memory. But he never did find who was responsible.

Until now. All that fighting, all the anger and suffering, all those years of fruitless attempts to find the person behind those bombs… And the information was just handed to him, by the most unlikely woman. Lucretia, whom he’d loved once; whom he’d loved _again._ Lucretia and a dead woman.

Briefly, he wonders if there is symmetry in the way he lost Julia and Lucretia lost Maureen. But then, the anger suffuses him again and he slams his fist into the arm of the sofa. It doesn’t matter—none of it _matters_ because both of them are gone.

How can he avenge Julia _now_? When the information was spilled like an overflowing bucket, freely given, handed over with a head hung like she was waiting for the executioner’s blade? How can he, when he misses Lucretia, just as much as he misses Julia?

He’d promised the ashes of the town that he’d take the person responsible apart, piece by piece, with fire and with iron until they begged and until they breathed out repentance, breathed out Julia’s name. He thinks of Railsplitter, given to him through Lucretia’s agency, buried into her flesh. Of his knives and of his fists, on her. He has had to kill her before, has had her die in his arms, and he knows what it feels like.

He knows what it feels like to take a knife to her throat, knows what it’s like as she shudders out her last breaths from a blade between her ribs. He knows, separately, what it feels like to break bones and pull joints from their sockets.

For so long, he imagined this and more aimed at a nameless, faceless man who ruined his life. But now that person is Lucretia, and his stomach roils at the brief thought of taking her apart like that.

It won’t solve a thing. Not a damn thing.

* * *

Days pass in the same fugue of fury and grief. No one visits. Lucretia doesn’t come back. Not that he expected, or even hoped, but it serves as a final punctuation that there’s nothing but silence from her: he’s alone, and everything between them is done.

But then, someone knocks on his door. Or rather:

Someone pounds on his door in a way that sounds more like a boot on the wood than a fist. He hauls himself up out of bed and stands, for a moment, at the coat hooks. He touches the wool softly, stomach twisting painfully.

“ _Hey, Burnsides, I know you’re home_!”

Magnus winces at Taako’s voice, but treads over the mess and opens the door slowly.

“I brought cheesecake, m’dude,” Taako declares, pushing himself past Magnus. He wrinkles his nose up and scowls at the man. “You fuckin’ stink.”

“I… haven’t had a shower today,” he says, scratching at his beard. Taako doesn’t need to know he hasn’t showered in days, unable to pick himself up long enough to do it. Taako’s eyes flick up and down his body and he huffs.

“Well, you stink. Get on that shit. Call off your demon horde,” Taako complains, as he’s swarmed with dogs.

Magnus watches in a daze for a few seconds before he shakes his head and whistles sharply. “Down, guys. Down.”

The dogs scatter at the command, though Johann sits primly at Magnus’ feet, sniffing curiously at Taako.

“What’s the uh, cheesecake for?”

Taako grins. “I have a new business opportunity,” he cackles. “There’s suddenly a need for cheesecake in Neverwinter.”

He hands off his bag to Magnus, unwinding his ridiculously fluffy scarf from around his neck. He goes to hang it on the hook, and then freezes.

Magnus looks and it’s a punch in the gut all over. Lucretia’s coat, dark navy with the silver filigree buttons—it’s hung there for days, and each time he sees it, it sinks deeper and deeper into him.

He vacillates between wanting to tear it down and rip it to pieces, throw them into his fireplace, relish the burning smolders of the dark wool, and wanting to  take it down and cradle it to his face and pretend she’s there, and that he can hold onto her. Sometimes both occur to him in the span of seconds; sometimes, he puts his hand to the coat and swings. He touched her once, in this coat. A hand on her shoulder as they walked; it gnaws at him, eats him from the pit of his stomach, up and out until it hurts to keep his hand on the fabric for even a second.

The coat is a ghost in his hallway, haunting him just like the picture on the mantle and the dreams he has never been rid of.

“She here?” Taako asks, his face a grimace of distaste.

“No,” Magnus says hoarsely. “No. She left it.”

Taako hangs his scarf two pegs away from Lucretia’s coat, and then sheds his own furry monstrosity. “Disgusting,” he says cheerfully. “Making excuses to come over, huh?”

“No. Taako, listen, I don’t want to talk about Lucre… I don’t want to talk about her.”

Taako swings around slowly, eyeing Magnus carefully.

Magnus averts his eyes from Taako’s stare—once upon a time, he could probably hide his disquiet from Taako. Once upon a time, Taako would let the matter drop; he might still have, if it weren’t about Lucretia. If it were anyone but Lucretia, Taako probably wouldn’t pounce upon his discomfort like a cat on a mouse.

“That’s funny,” Taako says quietly. “Because normally you don’t shut up about her.”

“Taako, let’s… the cheesecake, I’ll get some plates.”

“No, no,” Taako drawls, holding out his finger. “You won’t talk _about_ her, you’re stuck around being a sadsap, and Lup’s been out _all_ weekend with Lucretia? Barold even went to see Lup at _Lucretia’s_ apartment. ...You two fought, didn’t you?”

Sometimes, Magnus wishes Taako wasn’t so astute. He sighs hard through his nose.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Magnus says firmly.

Taako steps into the living area, surveying the room. His eyes linger on the chunks of glass, all that remains of the paperweight thrown earlier in the week, on the pillows scattered across the room. “You got angry with her?”

“Taako. Stop. I don’t want to have this conversation.”

“No, we’re going to fucking party,” Taako laughs. “Holy shit I thought she had you so wrapped around her fingers you’d roll over and die if she asked! And you two _fought_!”

“ _Taako_!”

Johann’s ears flatten and he starts to whine. Magnus fumbles with the bag to smooth his fingers through Johann’s fur.

“What did you fight about?” Taako inquires, stepping close so that they’re nose-to-nose. “What’s so bad that you wouldn’t forgive her over?”

Magnus feels himself sag with the memory, just like he has every time he’s thought about it.  

“My wife,” he says faintly. “We fought about Julia.”

“What? Did she kill her, too?”

Magnus recoils in shock, the world wavering beneath him.

“Woah, the shit?” Taako breathes. “Fuck, dude. Lucretia was on a _roll_.”

Magnus sits heavily on the sofa, head in his hands.

“I don’t want to… I don’t want to talk about this,” he snaps. “Let’s just eat this cheesecake.”

“Sure, sure, homie, but for real?” Taako says. “Like, one-hundred percent, she deffo did it?”

Magnus shrugs. “She said she… that she and her wife had a… they helped—there was a, a shadow movement to support the revolution here, and Lucretia, she… she and her wife made, they made weapons. That were, that were used by the other… that were used against us.”

“The bombs that were used on your…” Taako starts pacing. “Shit, that egocentric little—”

“Taako!”

“Don’t!” Taako snaps. “It’s not bad enough that she wiped us all clean, like little robots that had a loose screw and some bad programming—but she sticks her nose in everyone’s business? Visits with Merle, puts her fingers in your revolution!? Who’s to say what she did to _me_!? Past erasing the only, the only...”

He breaks off and shakes his head hard.  

“Not good enough that she took my whole family, but she kept popping up out of her hidey holes to terrorize us! Like she wanted us to be so thoroughly broken by the time she got around to picking us up like playthings that we felt we had _no choice_ but to go along with her!” His voice grows high with agitation as he starts kicking pillows out of his way.

“Taako,” Magnus repeats. “Stop, I’m tired of hearing this. I’m tired, Taako.”

“God, what’s next, she stumbles up and admits she put the fucking arsenic in shit-for-brain’s hand—”

“Taako!”

“What? She as good as killed them,” Taako shouts. “She killed all of them, because she couldn’t get her way, everything that went _right,_ she had to ruin! She made me, it’s her fault that I—”

Magnus finds himself standing, his hand gripped around Taako’s wrist tightly. “Don’t you ever,” he growls. “Insinuate that she would willingly do that to you.”

“What the fuck?” Taako demands, tugging back on his arm. He can’t pull it free. “Are you _defending_ her?”

“I—I don’t know,” Magnus says, shaking his head. “No—yes—I… I don’t know! I don’t know and I hate it!”

“She didn’t give a shit about any of us,” Taako shouts, jabbing a finger at Magnus’ sternum. “Not Merle, not Davenport, she left Barry and Lup for dead, she stuck her nose in your life when she saw it was going good, and she just, she left me. She left me, just out there, _alone_ , with no one and she never _once_ … I never saw— Merle said, and Barry, you, but me, no, never for me—”

Taako’s face goes blank and he shakes his head, teeth bared as he prods Magnus again in the chest. “Whatever. Enjoy your cheesecake and your—your pity party, I’m out. Cha’boy’s out, if that’s not enough to tell you she doesn’t give a shit except to further her own ends, I don’t know what is.”

He yanks hard, and Magnus lets him go, staring after him. “Taako,” he says faintly.

Taako stomps towards the door, grabbing his things in an angry silence.

“Taako,” Magnus repeats. Taako turns and fixes him with a cold gaze that shakes the truth out from behind the lump in his throat.

“Taako, I’d… I’d have rather she left me alone,” he admits.

“No,” Taako says coldly. “You don’t. Though it all ended the same either way.”

He slams the door behind him, leaving Magnus alone once again.

He runs his hand over his face, scrubbing away the crust of sweat, snot, and tears that has accumulated on his face. He feels grimy, worse than he’s been feeling. He runs his hand over his face again, but it only makes the feeling worse.

He sighs, and heads towards the bathroom for a shower.

An hour later, he’s freshly showered, shaved; his teeth are brushed for the first time all weekend, and he has some semblance of clarity.

He’s only lost a few days, but he feels like he’s been out of commission for months. Even now, he can feel the weariness chewing on the edges of his consciousness, dark and heavy. He knows that before long, he’ll succumb to it.

He needs to eat, first. And clean off the guest bed, because the trek up to the loft is too long, and too dogless for him to bear. He needs to drink something too.

Johann butts his head against his leg, tail wagging as Magnus kneels down to scrub his fingers through the rough doggy fur around his neck. He sighs and looks Johann in the eye. “What am I forgetting, boy?”

Johann snuffles at him and nudges his cheek with his snout. Magnus rubs his ears, thinking.

He doesn’t have any work lined up, not necessarily. He does some carpentry and odd jobs, but doesn’t have anything lined up at the moment. Most of his free time is spent volunteering at the dog shelter with Avery.

“Oh, _shit_. Thanks, bud,” he says absently, patting Johann on the head.

The dog shelter and Avery; Muffin and Muffin’s training. He’d completely forgotten.

He picks up his stone from the table in the kitchen and dial’s Avery’s frequency.

“ _Magnus?”_

“Hey, Avery, sorry that I’ve bailed out this weekend.”

“ _You’re just fine. I would have had to send you home or something, we had a big group of Fantasy Boy Scouts come through for volunteer hours. Didn’t have enough dogs, for once.”_

“Are you… are you gonna be okay, I uh… I’m not in any shape to come today or, I guess a while, I don’t know,” Magnus says slowly.

Avery clicks her tongue in sympathy. “ _Work got you busy?”_

“Something like that,” he says. “I just won’t be able to make it to Neverwinter as much as I used to. Speaking of, I don’t have Muffin anymore.”

“ _Oh! Did you win over your lady friend enough to send Muffin on home with her?”_

Magnus grimaces, feeling the heaviness sink back into his bones as his eyes burn. “Yeah. She uh, Muffin’s at home with her now. But she’s real busy, so I’m not sure about how well the training schedule will be able to be met?”

_“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. At most she’ll probably skip, what a week? Then Muffin’ll pee everywhere, and she’ll be back. Happens a lot.”_

Magnus snorts. “Well. Thanks, Avery… for understanding.”

Avery laughs. “ _You’re just fine, Magnus. It’s not like we pay you!”_

“You do in dogs.”

“ _The only currency that matters. I’ll see you when you get a chance, yeah? I’ll keep an eye out for your lady friend to bring in her pup.”_

“Yeah, thanks again, Avery, when it’s all over and settled, I’ll make it up to you. Build some new kennels or something.”

“ _I’ll hold you to that, then. Can’t turn that down.”_  

Magnus ends the call and puts his head in his hands. When he finally looks up, it’s dark outside and Johann’s whining at his ankle.

A step at a time, he tells himself; just one step at a time, no matter how hard.

* * *

A week, then two weeks pass in the same manner the first few days did:

Sometimes time moves so slowly that each second feels like an hour as he struggles to carve.

Sometimes, he looks up from the stroke of his knife to find five hours are gone, and he’s been carving in near darkness for close to an hour.

Sometimes, he can’t even turn on the stove, the smell of smoke hurling him back into the rubble of his home, looking for something, anything, that could give him hope.

Sometimes, he’s just fine.

Sometimes, he’s anything but. Some days the anger is too much. Sometimes even moving is too much. It’s just like those bleak months after Julia died all over again.

He knows isolating himself isn’t helping at all, but he can’t bear leaving his house, can’t bring himself to face his friends. Their mutual friends, who must know by now.

Taako hasn’t visited again. Neither has Lup, nor Barry, and no one has come for Lucretia’s coat, either.

He’s thought about returning it, seeking her out and telling her to get lost. Of taking the pile of things she’d touched or given him, the things that remind him of her, bundling it in the coat, and dumping it across her desk, just like what Maureen did to her. Twice would get the message across nicely, he thinks.

He constructs scenarios of shouting and demanding and shaking the facade of gravitas she built over herself.

But what will that achieve? And what would he even say? How could any of it ever fix what happened?

It won’t bring Julia back, and it won’t put her memory to rest. Seeing the cracks in Lucretia’s foundations, the ones that he knows are there, the ones that he deliberately prodded at, won’t make him feel any better at all.

It won’t ease the anger or the betrayal or the insurmountable injustice of his two greatest loves lost, lost to the same hand, twice over.

Back then, after losing Julia and Steven and his friends in the guilds and corridor, he’d eased the pain and the stupor it caused with seeking revenge, with throwing himself carelessly into the fray. Traveling, working, killing, seeking death himself in the hopes of being closer to the place where Julia was.

But he’s older now, with enough knowledge to crush a man to pieces.

People aren’t meant to hold so much inside of them; his century feels more like the distant stories the people around him tell than something he experienced, even though it sits within him like a stone. He’s not fit to be a mercenary any longer, unable to return to his reckless state with the knowledge he has now. Nor does he desire to go back to how he was without those memories, despite the suffocating stagnation he’s seeping in.

What he longed for the most, he thinks, was the chance to settle down for real. Not to turn in his adventuring gear for real, because that will never leave him, but somewhere to come home to, people to call his home once more.

He’d had that once, for a few blissful months. Julia by his side, a ring on his finger, and a goal to build a home and family with her. He would travel, of course, to sell his wares, and fight, if need be; he was a folk hero, after all, and small favors for others would never leave. There would always be bandits and there would always be bullies, even if there were no more revolutions. He saw his life, once, stretched out before him, knit in patterns of bright gold and honey and the sound of Julia’s voice bidding him good morning and good night, a quilt of happiness that could keep them warm and safe during even the coldest of times.

Lucretia could have been that, she could have been his harbor again, the place he returned to each night with love and certainty, like she’d been before. Like Julia had been, all those years ago. They could have pulled in new patterns from the old, scraps and stories from their lives before interwoven with something entirely new. Sad, a little worn, but loved and peaceful and sturdy.

It keeps circling back to that, to Julia and Lucretia, superimposed, two of the few people he’d ever loved so much that he would step back for them, that he would live for.

And they’re gone. The anger comes swiftly; it’s never far from the surface, even during his peaceful days. His hand shakes and he grips the block of wood he’s whittling at tighter, knuckles white.

He grits his teeth against the urge to throw it, smash it against the floor and fling the knife like a dagger at the wall, sinking it into the paneling. He tries to focus on carving, on bringing the shape forward, just a duck like the thousands he’s carved before, but instead of the familiar patterns, he sinks into memories instead.

His fingers curve around the still blocky body of the duck-to-be, edges biting into his palm as he’s nearly overcome again.

Johann begins to bark, rising from his perch beside Magnus’ feet. He trots out of the workroom, still barking, his tail whisking back and forth happily. Magnus sets aside the duck and the knife and comes out of the back room, met with the yawns and yips of several dogs as they come out of their lazy afternoon naps to greet whomever’s knocking at the front door.

Magnus wades through the dogs swarming the front door.

He cracks open the door, surprised to find Carey already picking the lock. “You knocked like...  thirty seconds ago.”

“I’m impatient. At least I knocked.”

He chuckles despite himself, happy to see someone familiar. “What brings you over here?”

“You ghosted on game night. And team dinner, like. Twice,” Carey says flatly. “And you won’t answer your stone.”

Magnus leans back on his heels and gives a dismissive half-shrug. “I… thought you might not want to see me.”

Carey squints at him. “What a load of shit,” she sighs. “I mean, you look terrible and nah, I don’t wanna see that, but like, really, man?”

Magnus scowls then sighs. “Did you want to come in for tea and the pretense of being civil first?  I know I look like shit.”

Carey jabs a finger at his chest, managing to be intimidating despite being a full two feet shorter than himself. “Tea, but without this attitude buster, or _else_.”

Magnus snorts and steps aside. the irritation waning just as quickly as it had flooded through him. He holds back one of the friendlier dogs  to allow her a path in.

“I really didn’t think you wanted to see me,” he says earnestly.

“We’re friends, I always want to see you bud,” Carey says, pushing one of the dogs down from her hip. “I mean that.”

Magnus swallows back the lump that rises in his throat. If his face betrays the wash of emotions that course through him at the reassurance, Carey says nothing. She just steps up beside him at the counter and helps pull down the last two clean mugs in the kitchen as he starts to fill the enchanted kettle with water. He flicks the sigil on the side and it starts to steam.

She watches him quietly and leans up against the counter, snatching up a sugar cube from the open bowl to turn between her fingers.

“What about Killian?” he finally asks.

“I mean, Kil’s real pissy about the whole thing, but she’ll get over it,” Carey says easily. Her tongue darts out briefly, then she swallows and shrugs a bit. “She’s just. She loves her a lot, you know?”

Magnus scratches the paint on the side of his mug. It scrapes under his nail, making a vibration that travels to his teeth, making him wince.

The kettle starts to whistle, and he taps the side of it again. He tosses teabags into each mug and pours the water over them.

“I guess,” he mutters as he pushes a mug towards Carey. “I don’t get why. Now that everything’s said and done.”

Carey rolls her eyes and throws the sugar cube at him.

“Don’t be a jerk,” she retorts.  She huffs and grabs a handful of sugar and tosses into her mug, stabbing at the mixture with a potentially dirty spoon from the counter. “You know why just as much as we all do; nothing has changed about Lucretia but except how much you know about her. She saved Killian, and me, and every single person in the Bureau.”

“Except, you know, the people she didn’t.”

She points her spoon at him and shakes it at him. “She gave us all homes when we had none, took us all out of shitty, shitty situations. You saw what it was like for Killian during that mission in Phandalin. What those bandits were doing to that orc boy. That’s not, that wasn’t a freak incident, those weren’t outliers, and you know it.”

Magnus looks down at his hands and remains silent.

“I’m not saying that the Director was always _right_ ,” she says softly. “Or always had the best ideas. Some of it was hairbrained and slapdash and downright dangerous. People got sent out and yeah, got hurt or killed— it happened all the time in the early days. A lot of people went like Brian did, and defected, caused problems. It was always, there was always a risk, y’know? But Killian’s always been upfront about what it was like before I joined. They tricked a lot of people, scammed them. Hurt them. It was no secret that Phandalin…”

“Was always supposed to be destroyed, yeah,” Magnus says flatly. “It… it wasn’t a hard puzzle to figure out, once everything was over.”

Carey nods and stirs her tea thoughtfully. “The first round of recruits were all handpicked by the Director. Boss and Doc went out and looked for people who had holes in their history, who had nothing to lose by disappearing and wanted, above all, to figure out where the holes were and how to fix them.”

She looks up at Magnus and regards him carefully. “People who were affected by the Voidfish’s magic. Brian, Killian, Johann… all of them lived on the fringes of cities leveled by the Relics. Even Doc Miller. She and Lucas were pushed into hiding by ‘em. You know, a little. Taako knows, a bit more, of what it’s like to have the edges of something solid chewed away on like that. She only took in the people who… who she felt like she owed a second chance to.”

Magnus clenches his jaw tightly. “And you two knew that?”

“From day one. We weren’t fed the bullshit story newer recruits got, not the same shit you were fed either. It wasn’t the, I mean, of course it wasn’t the _truth_. But she laid it out. This is what happened, this is why it happened, this is what I want to do. She always said ‘contain’ in the beginning. She tried her best to do the _good_ thing, even though it wasn’t the best thing. Why do you think all the OG members _stayed_ with her after, after the Hunger? We all knew what we were in for, why we were in for, and what was expected of us. We were soldiers, Magnus. The Director… Lucretia never hid that from us.”

“And that never—that never _bothered_ you?! She sent Killian down to Magic fuckin’ Brian, to _Phandalin_ , planning a massacre to, to—to make sure we went up and signed on!”

“Soldiers are there to be used,” Carey says softly. “We all protected each other when and where we could. But Killian, Killian was good at her job. And her job was to contain the relic and Brian and… she knew, Magnus. Lucretia never sent us out without us knowing.”

“She used you,” Magnus says quietly.

“We _asked_ her to use us.”

“You were tools; we were all tools.”

Carey shakes her head. Her tongue flicks out again in agitation. “Yes, but… _No_. No, Magnus. Don’t do that to her, she deserves better than that. She deserves so much more than that from you.”

“I don’t _owe_ her anything,” Magnus snaps, slamming his fist to the table. “ _She_ owes me, _I_ deserve more than—”

“Oh shut up,” Carey snaps. “You don’t. It doesn’t matter what she did or how she did it. Your life is yours, and your feelings are yours, but she has some too, Magnus. She opened herself up and you act like _this_ when all she was was honest. Just ‘cause it wasn’t what you wanted to hear, doesn’t mean she owes you more than what she gave. Deserve and owe are two different things, and the least you can do is respect her because she’s… She’s alive and she’s here and she’s been a friend to you, so at least respect her enough to listen to me.”

“It’s not about respect, I need to know, I won’t have closure otherwise—”

“And that isn’t Lucretia’s fault! She’s never going to get closure on Maureen, she’s never going to know anything that was going on with Maureen, why that broke. You’re never going to know about what she got up to without you. I’m never going to know things about Killian, and she’s never going to know things about me! That’s just—that’s just how it is, Magnus!”

Carey shakes her head and sets her cup aside, gesturing between them. “There are things that we’ll never know about each other. We’re friends, and we talk and we help each other, but there’s, that’s just part of being people. It’s different for you guys, yeah, because you had so long together, that’s why it hurts, because you forgot how it is for, for just regular ass people, but there are… You and Lucretia and you and I, me and Killian, we’re different people, who think things differently and act differently, and sometimes, there’s no reconciling that. To be told at face value, even if you don’t understand, well, it’s trust, there was trust put into what Lucretia did.”

“She trusted you with information that hurt, it hurt you and it hurt her, too,” Carey says, shaking her head in frustration. “Because she knew you needed to know it, and to… to react the way you did… lashing out like that at her, at other people, being an ass about the Bureau and everything, it’s… I understand, Magnus. I get it, I get it, buddy. I can’t tell you I wouldn’t be in the same place if Killian died in duty,” she whispers, her voice cracking. “I’d be right there raging with you. But dragging it out like this… it’s not good for anyone.”

“What’s your point?” Magnus asks flatly. “Because I’m not following.”

“You’ve gotta let it go,” Carey says as gently as she can. “Work it out and let it… let it heal. It’s gonna be a part of you, for sure. But you gotta work it out, but not like this. I don’t know how, but I can tell you, it’s not like this.”

“She, you don’t get it,” Magnus snaps, fingers curling into his palms. He feels his arms shake with the movement. With effort, he unfurls his fingers and stretches his arms out, gesturing expansively. “All of this, she knew, she helped _build_ this, made herself a home here, knowing what she had done!”

“Was she never supposed to feel safe anywhere, Magnus, then?”

“No! Yes— that’s not, that’s not what I _mean_. She’s a bully, Carey, she just used people to get what she wanted. Us, Fisher and Junior, me, Maureen Miller—”

“You don’t know what happened with Doc Miller, I was there and _I_ didn’t even know, and I was _wrong_ about—”

“It doesn’t matter! She took people’s _families_ away, took their husbands and sons and girlfriends and lovers and _children_ from them, she used me as a tool to feel safe and comforted, and—”

“She loved you, Magnus!” Carey shouts over him. Her eyes are wild, pupils down to slits as her tongue slips out as she represses the urge to hiss her annoyance out at him. “It was obvious to everyone, even before, she loved you, she loved the three of you and nothing changes that! You were friends, equals, and she always let you three do whatever you wanted! You went to her, you offered her comfort, we all made her take it when she was scared of it, you don’t get to, to say she was taking advantage of something you offered, because _god forbid_ she get comfort from her friends! From someone she saw as family! The fact that your relationship changed doesn’t change that, you idiot!”

“I was some tool she used to achieve her goals, to help her gain traction in her relationship with Maureen Miller, to gather up relics and send to the places she was too scared to go to!”   

Carey shakes her head and takes a step back. “I can’t have this conversation with you, Magnus, since you seem to think you’re… You can feel the way you feel, I get it, but I just… She’s a person, Magnus, all the Director is is a person like you, who makes mistakes and… In the end, she listened, she never wanted it to be the way it was.”

She sighs and stuffs her hands into her pockets. “But we’re not gonna agree, and, it’s a bummer, Magnus. It sucks. But I don’t want to fight about it, I just want to see you okay, you know?”

Magnus looks away, teeth grit. “Yeah. Whatever. Let me see you out.”

“Okay. Yeah.” Carey’s voice is quiet.

She sighs and follows behind Magnus to the living room.

“As for… y’know, aren’t we all tools, in the end?” Carey says, more to herself than Magnus. “It was hard for me to make sense of it all, early when I joined, later after the Day. It’s all out of my depth and all. But. The Celestial Plane is real. The shit there is real. You’ve seen ‘em. Spoken to ‘em. In time, hell, I bet y’all could _be_ one of ‘em. We’re here, and what we do is what we do, and there’s some grand plan to it. That’s just how it is, sometimes. People get caught up in the gods’ motives, and then shit happens. A lot of shit happened. It’s not about being used or not used, it’s just… life.”

Magnus closes his eyes and takes in a slow breath, then sighs loudly. He’s seen so many gods; stone-wrought, shining, breezes on the wind, voices without mouths. A shining scarf of many colors and a quietly proud promise.

He doesn’t feel amazing anymore.

He doesn’t feel like anything.

“Yeah,” he says flatly. “I guess it is.”

Carey gingerly touches Lucretia’s jacket. “I can take this back to her, you know.”

“No,” Magnus says, surprising himself with the quickness of his answer. He hadn’t realized how strongly he felt about the idea, despite having daydreamed about a retrieval.  “No. I… I’ll… deal with it myself. It needs to be me.”

Carey frowns and scratches her neck. “No, not really,” she says softly. “Listen… Bud. She’s doing… she’s doing real good. Don’t fuck it up showing up a month after it’s been over and done with, she’s. She’s happy and doing good and you showing your ass isn’t going to make anyone feel better.”

Magnus swallows hard, stomach lurching. “She’s… okay?”

“Of course she is, she wouldn’t act any other way,” Carey snorts. “Even if she was dying, she’d carry on like always. But yeah… Magnus, she’s… it might be hard to hear this, but she’s… she’s amazing. She always was, but… she’s, yeah.”

Magnus feels like he’s elsewhere, like he’s hearing the words from the next room over. “Is she?”

“Yeah,” Carey says earnestly. She reaches out and touches Magus’ arm. “And I hope you do the same, you know? It… I don’t like that you’re isolating yourself like this. I’m still your friend, Magnus. Killian is too. And Avi. We’re all still around, and I bet Lup and Barry and them, if you asked, they’d come see you.”

“Thanks,” Magnus says. It’s like hearing someone else talk, like when Edward knocked his soul from his body.

He waves as Carey clambers back into her glass ball, watching it as it rises up, then towards the second moon on the horizon. He leans back against his door long after the orb has diminished to the dimmest spark against the darkening sky. He makes his way to his porch swing and sinks against its hand-smoothed slats.

He’d made it, like everything else, months and months ago. Lucretia had taken a liking to it; when it was warm, it was where they sat and talked the most, with tea or lemonade or cider, watching the dogs play in the yard. It felt like home, then.

“Amazing, huh?” he mumbles to himself.

He thinks about what Carey said, about finding his answers and working through it on his own. About asking for help.

A month, and he’s no less angry about it than he was the second that Lucretia told him. He’s no closer to finding his answers, to reconciling the way he feels about Lucretia and his anger. He still feels betrayed, like his happiness was used to further her own ends, like he meant nothing to her save for what he could do for her.

“Amazing,” he repeats, looking up at the dusting of stars starting to show through the sunset. All this time, and he’s no closer to his answers alone. He’s no closer to understanding _why_.

He’s just a man, after all. And who better than to answer his questions than someone higher than a man?

He stands slowly and dusts his palms of dust that isn’t there. He whistles for Johann, who stops scratching his ear to cock his head.

“C’mon, boy, I need to start packing,” he says, rubbing Johann’s head fondly. “It’s been a while since I’ve gone to the temple.”


	25. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quiet interlude before we continue with Magnus' thread.

Killian knocks on her office door and pokes her head in. “Boss, he’s here,” she says. She pats Muffin on the head as the dog runs up to greet her. 

Lucretia looks up from her papers and gives Killian a weary smile. “You could have just let him in, you know,” she says. She snaps her fingers gently, and Muffin comes back to rest beside her feet at her desk. 

“Nah, figured I’d give a little warning.”

Lucretia chuckles and sets her quill aside, pulling the tray of artifacts out from the depths of her desk drawers. “Thanks for that.”

“No prob, Boss.”

She pulls out a file and a pen. She’s suddenly filled with a restless energy, an anxiety that can’t be broken by wiggling her toes within her boots or tapping her nails against the desk. 

The door opens again and Barry sticks his head in. “I’m a little early,” he says. Muffin looks up and barks a few times, silenced only as Lucretia rests a hand on her haunches. 

“That’s just fine,” she says, internally wincing as her ‘professional’ voice comes out. 

If Barry notices she’s using her Director voice, he doesn’t comment. He steps inside and closes the door behind himself. He holds up a brown bag tied with green twine. “Lup sent this along for you. Said you were gonna kill for some of her tea.”

“Oh, she really… thank you,” she murmurs, standing up to take the bag from behind her desk. 

“You know Lup, she spoils people,” Barry laughs. 

“Sit, please,” Lucretia says after an awkward beat. “There’s uh, some paperwork before we begin. Just. Just to acknowledge that there is uh, some danger involved. And the ah, potential for death.”

Barry’s eyes crinkle with his chuckle. “Really?”

“Standard protocol. Brad insisted,” Lucretia says, pushing the folder across the desk towards Barry. 

Barry takes it and the pen, clicking it as he pages through each sheet of agreements. “You do realize even if I die, it’s not gonna do much, right?”

“Brad insisted,” Lucretia repeats. She sits at her chair, spine stiff as she watches Barry’s eyes flick over each new page. He signs, initials, and dates on each dotted line. 

“Thank you for coming,” she says to break the silence. Her ears and neck feel warm; she feels like something’s come undone within her, her stomach churning with nervousness. Barry. In her office. On the moon base. 

Barry, _helping_. 

“I actually didn’t expect you to agree to this,” Lucretia continues, straightening her pens in a row. “I just, people keep sending in things. I don’t know what to _do_ with them, and Lup said you might be interested. I don’t think some of them are even magical. I don’t have the time to fiddle with all of them, and Leon has other duties now.” 

“It’s not a problem,” Barry says, sliding the folio across her desk. “This is right up my alley.” 

Lucretia nods and pushes the tray towards Barry. “These are just a few of the items that have been, ah… donated to the Bureau. We have an entire room dedicated to cataloging them. They just pile up so fast without the limitations on magical items; the gashapon has been full for weeks now.” 

Barry leans forward and peers into the tray over the edges of his glasses. “Hmm. How do you want to categorize?” 

“Oh, I thought I would leave that up to you? This is your area of expertise, after all,” she says. “Anything that could present a danger you can destroy or, well, I won’t be looking if you’d like to take it for personal research.” 

Barry chuckles and picks up a small clockwork mouse. He touches its snout and it scurries up his arm. “That’s generous of you, Lucretia.” 

“Well, I… I do feel bad I can’t pay you,” Lucretia says. “Our coffers are a bit tight right now.” 

“You don’t need to compensate me for a favor,” Barry admonishes, the tone of his voice softened by the mouse on his head. 

Lucretia shrugs and picks up his file of paperwork. She slides it into her outbox. “I mean, maybe not, but… You really are doing me a huge favor and… I didn’t expect you to.” 

Barry is quiet for a long moment. He lets the mouse run from his shoulder to his cupped palms. He touches its nose again and it falls still. 

He clears his throat. “So. How have you been?” 

Lucretia looks up, blinking rapidly. “Pardon?” 

“How have you been doing?” Barry repeats. “You were in a rough spot a few months ago and… Well. Are you…?” 

“Oh.” 

Lucretia folds her hands into her lap, twisting her fingers together. She remembers seeing Barry peer through the door to her apartment, looking for Lup during those few days Lup stayed with her. She’s embarrassed to remember that during that time, she’d been unkempt and weepy. 

“I’m doing… well,” she says carefully. “Keeping busy here, you know.” 

“Your dog is considerably larger,” Barry says, nodding towards the fluffy white that gives a single thump against the floor. 

“Oh, Muffin?” Lucretia laughs. “She’s getting bigger every day.” 

“I heard Taako paid you a visit when you were planetside,” Barry says slowly. He nods sympathetically as Lucretia’s face falls and her nose scrunches. 

“Ah, I went for cheesecake, and… well. Mm.” 

“Did you try the turtle?” 

“Oh, no, I got the mint truffle,” Lucretia says. “Before Taako kicked me out, luckily. It was good. Are you still eating dairy? Not to nag, but that can’t be good for you.” 

Barry gives a sly smile. “Fantasy Lactaid,” he says. “Don’t tell Lup.” 

Lucretia shakes her head as she represses a small smile. She studies Barry carefully. No one would expect death to look like a suburban professor, tired and rumpled around the edges with cable knit cardigans and a tattered crimson robe. 

“I’m sure she knows already,” Lucretia says lightly. 

“Oh, well. I know all about her Fantasy Girl Scout cookies under the bed, but when we don’t want to share, we don’t share.” 

“That’s terrible,” Lucretia says, not without amusement. 

“So. Are you really doing well?” Barry inquires. 

Lucretia sighs deeply. “I survived my Taako experience, if that’s what you’re asking. Did Lup put you up to this?” 

Barry puts down a medallion heavily inlaid with emeralds. “No,” he says. “I came because your offer was interesting and because I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to hear what you had to say.” 

“About?” 

“Anything,” Barry says. He taps the medallion gingerly. “This is most certainly cursed, by the way.” 

Lucretia picks up her wand from her desk and taps it once to the emerald surface. A white, shimmering sphere circles it completely. 

“Thanks,” she murmurs. “I mean, I don’t know what you want me to say, Barry. I… I’ve done terrible things. I took Lup from you and Taako and I… I don’t know. Ask Taako, or… Or _Magnus_. I’m sure, between the two of them, you can hear all about me.” 

“I’ve heard from Taako,” Barry says. “I’ve heard about Magnus, too. I’m sorry.” 

Lucretia shakes her head and drops her hand from her lap. Muffin comes up and nudges her snout against her palm. “It was a long time coming, truthfully,” she whispers. 

“What are you going to do about it?” 

“Do about it?” Lucretia scoffs. “I can’t do anything about it!” 

“Sure you can,” Barry says. He sorts through the tray for something else to inspect. He starts sorting a small bag of coins. “Quit this, and go find Magnus. He’s gone off on some soul searching pilgrimage. Go with him. Relearn everything. Make a new life.” 

Lucretia splutters, anger creeping up into her chest at the suggestion. “Are you— how— I, I can’t just _quit_ what I’m doing here!” 

“Sure you could.” 

“I am trying to undo— there are so many places that were damaged by the Relics. Trade routes undone, cities that sent every man, woman, and child away and withered for it, people who lost the ability to make a life— I did… _we_ did that. I can’t just, I can’t quit what I’ve started, we _owe_ it to these people,” she says angrily. 

“Do we?” Barry asks placidly. 

Lucretia clenches her jaw and shakes her head. “I do my best, but it’s hard to not be resentful that the rest of you have… have decided to shun the damage we did. It’s a heavy burden and I have shouldered it for so long, alone. I had hoped that, I wanted… Help, I would have loved it if help had been offered to me.”

“Magnus helped, for a while,” she sighs. “But the rest of you have… ignored what I’ve been doing, and I have… so much to do, Barry.”

“I’ve had to do so much. So many people wanted information about the people they lost. People who died in the Wars, people who died because of my Regulators and by the actions of the boys, and not all of them were as understanding as the people of Refuge were. I had to do those meetings _alone_. I was the sole representative of the IPRE in so many of them. Killian and Carey were there, and god, I wouldn’t have made it past the first one without them. Where were you, where was the crew? You did this too, and no one wants to shoulder the blame. The people that died under my purview, yes, that was my fault. It’s my fault, too, that there were people whose grief was stymied because of what I did with Fisher. My late w… Maureen Miller was one of those people, and I never did truly manage to make what I did _right_. But people who lived in Armos, Greenhold— any place the Relics touched…” 

Her voice trails off and she shakes her head. “Sometimes just a story isn’t enough to quell the anger and the grief and I’ve… I’ve put up with a lot of shit. And there’s still more shit in the fan, Barry, I can’t _quit_ and reinvent my life. I dedicated myself to this a long time ago. It doesn’t matter anymore, this is my… this is what I do now.” 

“You never let us know that you wanted help,” Barry retorts, shaking his head. “We would have...” 

“No, Barry, you wouldn’t have. Neither would the Captain. Or Taako. Merle has his children, and Magnus was helping me elsewhere, where he was needed more aptly. And I couldn’t bear to ask Lup for fear of shattering the peace and calm she’s worked so hard to build. So I… I didn’t ask. Just like I didn’t tell anyone that I was hurting or that I wanted to _be_ with someone while we were grieving Lup, while we were grieving this world.”

“That’s your fault, then.” 

A grimace tugs at Lucretia’s lips. “I never said what I felt was _right_. Just that I felt it.” 

“I didn’t come to mince about with pedantics, Lucretia. I came to help you,” Barry says evenly. 

“Yes,” Lucretia says slowly. “Because I _asked_. And I’m grateful.” 

Barry pauses for a moment then nods. “Ah, that was your point. I see,” he says. “But surely you see mine?” 

Lucretia sighs and runs her fingers through Muffin’s fur, letting the dog put her paws up onto her lap. “I do, Barry. And maybe you could do it, if it was you and Lup. But I can’t. It doesn’t matter what my feelings on the matter may be, he doesn’t want to see me. Let him go on his… his… journey to self discovery, or whatever.” 

“Magnus is just angry,” Barry says carefully. 

“ _I’m_ angry too,” Lucretia snaps. “All of you are out, living your happy endings. You and Lup get to be together forever, Taako is out… being Taako, humiliating me in public and hogging Angus. Merle has his beach and Davenport, god, I hope he has peace out there. All I wanted when this was over was… there was a cabin in the mountain, me and Maureen were going to— well. _That’s_ not possible at all anymore. I won’t ever see her again,” Lucretia’s voice cracks and wavers. 

She presses her palm to her eye and wipes under her eyes. “I know, of course, what Kravitz set up for Magnus, and I’m so… I’m happy for him, of course. He deserves that, the peace. It’s just that…”

She puts her hands on her desk, stretching her palm out before curling her fingers to themselves. “Not that I would ask or expect or even… even want or hope for anything more than this. Because it’s so detestable that I _want_ things. That I _had_ things. That I have regrets.” 

She sniffs and shakes her head. “Listen to me, I set up a-a _paper shredder_ for your soul, and _I’m_ the one angry with you.”

Barry winces at the comparison. “Well, I didn’t give you much faith to work on.”

“You never meant to hurt me, or Robbie,” Lucretia sighs. “I set out to murder you.”

“You didn’t want to, and that counts for something. You didn’t necessarily want it to end like this. The intent for good… well. I can’t discount the things _I_ did in the name of doing the right thing. It’s what you want now, what you’re doing now that counts— what’s done is done.”

Lucretia shakes her head slowly. “All those years ago, all I wanted was to— I wanted to settle down. Get married to Magnus and have children and paint. Write a book. Set all the magic and fear and guilt aside. And now, I’m a widow and he’s a widower— and neither to each other. I haven’t painted in years, I have set myself on a path where I won’t be able to settle down, and I’ve taken all of our guilt onto myself.”

“What _do_ you want, then, Lucretia? If not how it’s turned out?”

Lucretia thinks of Magnus’ hand on the small of her back. Of Muffin in his lap, her lopsided bow in his hands. Of Maureen’s thin fingers and sharp wit. Of the dream of her families, old and new, together. The things she wanted—Barry and Lup and Lucas, Maureen and Magnus, an indistinct dream home with a garden, the underground laboratory and Maureen’s sunflowers and explosive mint bushes. 

Magnus, yelling at her. _You aren’t capable of compassion anymore._ Maureen, flat-voiced and frank. _You’re ruthless, Lucretia, and that scares me._

She sighs. 

“I think there’s a limit to how many happy endings you get once you forfeit enough of them. I’ll just take what I can get, and it’s this.” She gestures at her desk, the expansive maps and the inbox overflowing with letters and artifacts and even more maps. 

“I’m going to stop you right there, Lucretia. Don’t demean what you’re doing because it wasn’t what you wanted thirty years ago.” 

“It’s not demeaning,” Lucretia says, voice tight. “I’m very happy with my work, and I love my— my friends here. I just. Surely you understand the loneliness.” 

“Ten years of it, yes.”

“It never stopped for me, I’m still… I’m still lonely, Barry. I miss my family, my first one in the team, and the one I made here, too. Even now, I… would you go to see Magnus? I… I don’t want to see him. I’m—I’m afraid of what I’ll do if I see him, truthfully.”

Lucretia looks away, ashamed at how her voice cracks and wavers. “I, there’s… I understand why Taako keeps railing at me. It’s… dreadful, but I want to show up at his door and rail and scream and be angry at him. I want to demand my happy ending that I wanted, that I thought I could have. I want to be undone and angry for once.”

Barry picks up a small marble from her inbox, surveying the swirling galaxy within it. “But?” He prompts. “I hear a but.”

“It won’t do anyone any good,” Lucretia sighs. “My best good is here, doing what I’m doing. And most days, I’m good with that. My peace has been made, and I’m, I’m _good_ here. I enjoy it, and I can move on from being hurt. But after the other day, it’s just, it’s hard. Taako just… has a way of…”

“Rubbing against the grain?” Barry asks with a wry grin. “Don’t listen to his shit, then, Lucretia. This is something you might want to keep.”

He flips the marble with his thumb, sending it flying across the room. It halts abruptly in the middle of the room and spins, slowly expanding to the size of an apple, then shines. 

“Oh, it’s a planetarium,” he muses, tipping his head back to watch the lights spin slowly on the ceiling. “Or a particularly showy star chart.”

“It’s lovely,” Lucretia says softly, remembering nights spent on the deck of the Starblaster, wrapped in quilts and Magnus’ strongly brewed teas. Of nights atop the quarry, laid out with Maureen as they studied the orbits of stars, discussing trajectories and the breakfast they would eat and the ways they’d make love if it weren’t freezing. It tugs at her, deep in the pit of her gut, filling her with longing. 

Muffin barks sharply and snaps at the marble, leaping into the air to snag it like a ball, shutting off the gently twinkling lights. 

“Oh, Muffin! Spit that out!” she shrieks, jumping from her chair so quickly that it rolls back against the wall. She runs to her dog, who promptly runs from her, galloping around to the other side of Barry’s cair. “No! Bad girl!” 

She spits it out into Barry’s lap. 

Barry snorts, then tips his head back and laughs, a sound Lucretia hasn’t heard in nearly twenty years. 

“Or a particularly magical fetch toy,” he wheezes, holding out the spluttering ball of light. 

Lucretia takes it gingerly. He grins at her and mimes throwing it upwards. She copies the motion and it hangs above their heads, filling her office with stars. 

“Thank you,” she whispers. “For this.” 

“Thank _you_ ,” he says. “For this.” 


	26. Reform, Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to the WDA for all the edits, encouragement, and excitement for what's happening and what will and all the help with knitting terminology and links and description of "knitting heaven".  
> Please note there's been an important addition to the pairing tags!

It never fails to amaze Magnus just how easy it is to pack up his entire life and go.

His entire life is made up of the decisions to leave, wander, and settle wherever he’s taken.

He’d left his hometown—if the dusty outpost could even be called a town—at fourteen, parents gone, longing deep in his bones, a leaflet between his fingers. He’d left his tiny apartment in the city for the sky— he’d thought he’d come back, but it didn’t hurt quite as much as it should have when it was swallowed whole into that opalescent maw.

They’d spent a hundred years picking up and moving, fleeing. It settled into his bones, even when he couldn’t remember. It was only his desire to move, keep moving, even with his heart firmly planted with Julia, that kept him from death.

It had been hard to leave Raven’s Roost. In some ways, he’s still there, at the base of the smouldering trail, looking up up up at the wreckage. It took him days to finally turn around and start walking away, but he did it anyway.

And then, for years, a cycle: New town, new people, new gigs, new fights. Over and over and over, the only constant being his hammer, his fists, and the need to keep moving.

And then: Taako and Merle, the way they ended up in orbit, a barely-functioning unit of disaster for a handful of gigs, and then… the last job they’d ever need.

Then, the Bureau: a home, a year of strange stability that was built on the least stable foundations. The memories that returned only solidified the thing that Magnus had always suspected of himself.

It was not the place that mattered, but the people, and he knows this as he packs up his things. He knows as he arranges care for his dogs and his home and growing training business, that these are people who make his home: the tiefling mother who can’t promise her son won’t spoil the dogs rotten, but will make sure they’re walked and fed. The older woman across the way who views his absence as an excuse to finally paint his fence for him and do something about his garden.

It’s strange, the way they just accept his wandering without question. What’s even stranger, is that they know he’ll be back.

He has people to expect him back, and that makes the world of difference.

* * *

He takes the trek to Refuge the same way that all pilgrims of Istus do: by foot, by carriage, by fate’s provisions.

It’s like a mantra; like a magnetic pull, like the tug of the strings of fate, pulling him three feet to the left, just so, there, to the deck of the Starblaster.

If he does it right, if he does it the way he’s supposed to, maybe he’ll get answers. Maybe he’ll feel some sort of peace in the motions, in the time-honored traditions. Maybe it’ll give him the sense of ease that he used to have when he worked wood, when he trained, when he found his peace in the bottom of a bottle and a fist to the face. Maybe he’ll get it _right_ this time.

The last time he made this trip, he was ill prepared and young. The sun baked the sense out of him back then.

Now, he turns his face to it, heat sinking into his bones, burning him away of the heaviness that plagues them.

He needs so badly to be sure of something. He thought he was sure about his life, finally. He’d settled, found what he wanted to do, rediscovered the love that once defined so much of his life, and that had been knocked clean from his hands. He wants to take it _back_.

There are days where he breaks camp, wakes up in a new inn, blinks sleep from his eyes on the back of a wagon, and everything is fine. He has the strength to keep moving, so smile and wave and talk to anyone who wants to press their hands to his during their own moment of pilgrimage.

There are others where he sets his trip back one more day, unable to move, to speak, to even breathe without the ache of it dragging him down. Where every person who wants to see him is a knife against his back. He feels like he’s seconds from death each time someone innocently asks him about his family, the other birds.

Once, someone asks him about Lucretia—the glass in his hand crumbles with the reflexive clench of his fist, startling them both into silence.

He picks the glass out of his palm in the back room of the tavern, losing count between one and three as he tries to breathe.

She is inescapable. It doesn’t matter how much he tries to not think about her, his mind still circles back to her.

He tries to focus on the journey, on the questions he wants answered. He travels by the light of the two moons, and does his best not to think about what she’s doing.

He does anyway.

He follows a map he bought off of a caravan ten miles out of Raven’s Roost, following the spindly lines that mark the track to Refuge. It weaves and backtracks, following the steps of someone he’s never met, the words of innkeepers and tavern-goers, stopping at each small shrine on his way. Some are small little hollows in trees, cairns of rocks and old metal-dipped string; others are people’s actual homes.

None are quite the temple in Refuge, though, as the dirt turns to clay, each shrine gets a little grander, a little more well-kept, a little newer.

The air gets drier, dustier. The winter-time chill grows warmer, warmer, until he’s burning. He’s prepared this time, with water and provisions and a little doggie visor for Johann. But the heat is familiar, the sear of the sun on his skin is an echo.

All those years ago, all he could think about as he stumbled was home. He needed to make it home, he needed to live; this was it, the cup burning in his hands was a testament to the end.

He’d gone through so much to make the cup, lessons and arguments, and that god-awful year alone. He’d promised her he’d come back, he’d promised her so much… A home, a family, a house. He  _had_ to live, then, for her. 

He looks over the trail leading into Woven Gulch, heart in his throat.

He remembers stumbling down to the bottom, hoping for a river, for a stream. Plants to cut open and drink the sap—something, anything. Now, he looks for landmarks, for the path to Refuge.

The irony was, he’d been only a few miles out when his legs had finally given out on him back then.

Funny, how fate works out.

Funny, the plans that fate had for him and his: This path had started twelve years previously, with a chance meeting between himself, lost and dying, and Jack, a miner looking for new work with his daughter in tow.

Anyone else, and Magnus isn’t sure he’d have entrusted the cup to them. Anyone else, and he might have died. Anyone else, anyone else… So many parts and pieces that added up to this whole, and he needs to know _why_.

If he was saved so that Fate herself could provide, then that’s who has to answer his questions.

He’s done everything right, so far that he can figure, at least. While there’s been a resurgence in the following of Istus, there’s not a whole lot to go on for rites and traditions. But he hopes the effort involved means something. A month and a half of travel isn’t anything to sneeze at.

He finds himself nervous as he nears the town. It’s thriving, for sure; he’s hailed several times on the road in. Thankfully, he’s so dirty that he’s not recognizable from afar.

Just a traveler and his dog, dirty and road-worn.

He dusts the dirt from his pants, winding Johann’s lead around his hand. He sticks to the back alleys of the town, learned from their madcap attempts at saving time when they were stuck in the loop with the rest of the town.

It’s luck alone that no one notices him. He keeps thinking he sees something out of the corner of his eye, a flash of red that is his guilty conscience screaming.

He’ll go visit soon, he tells himself. He’ll see them soon, he just, he _has_ to get to the temple first.

He whispers a quiet apology to the air for being rude, just in case the quick glimpse was real. Johann nudges his leg with his nose, tail swishing slowly.

He sneaks onwards to the temple.

Just as he was impressed two years previously, the temple’s craftsmanship still makes him pause in appreciation. Now that Refuge is prospering, there are pilgrims and followers. Seeing it in its fully rebuilt glory, it’s even more splendid than ever before.

Tapestries hang from the rafters, technicolor light spilling through the stained glass and the thinly woven threads, coloring the wooden floor in shimmering patterns. And there, there’s the altar, covered in knitting bowls and wool and candles, a shrine of craftsmanship.

He came here for a bit of reassurance, a bit of peace.

Instead, his gut roils with anger. How could this place be so beautiful, when it was fate that took everything? He feels dirty, used, as he walks up to the pulpit.

Was everything designed just so that he could come to the moment where he would come face-to-face with a goddess? Why was Julia part of that, why did she have to die to set that chain into motion? Why was _she_ the collateral in Fate’s plans?

Was everything just some game for some higher powers, unwilling to meddle when things got bad?

He paces the length of the pulpit in the empty hall.

Luca’s voice drifts from behind the tapestry, indistinct. A woman’s voice, then quiet.

He sits on the edge of the stage, dropping Johann’s leash so he can put his head in his palms.

He gives himself over to his thoughts.

Why? Why did Julia have to die? Why did Lucretia have to do what she did—why, why, why?

The anger rises in him easily, stirring up in his gut and overflowing. While he’s gotten better at keeping it at bay, it’s never far from him. His anger has become his own personal ghost, following him, keeping him awake, tripping him up during the easiest of tasks.

Part of him knows that he’s given too much of himself over to the bitterness of it, over to the knee-jerk reactions and quick, but stubborn, judgement that has always been his downfall.

If he just had answers, if he just understood, maybe he could begin to make sense of it.

He closes his eyes and clenches his fingers into his hair, focusing on his plea—he needs to know why, he needs to know there was a reason behind it all, he needs to know, above all, if he ever had a choice. If he was always doomed to be some pawn of the universe, knocked around from place to place, losing everything he ever held dear, over and over.

He gives himself over to the question he never bothered to ask during the century: _Why_?

“The Lady of Fate will provide,” he hears Luca say. “Even in the most roundabout of ways.”

The woman says something else, but Magnus has heard enough. He stands and kicks the edge of the stage, shaking down to his very core with rage.

After everything, _this_ is the answer he gets? Roundabout words and drifting voices from a goddess he’s seen, he’s _touched_?

“Bullshit,” he hisses. “I don’t feel provided for, I feel ripped off. Julia was my fate, I was hers—”

He jabs a finger towards the image of Istus. “You had the power to change things; you could have made a different story out of us. There had to be a way she could have lived, somehow, even if we couldn’t—you could have saved her, you could still save her.”

Johann whines and nudges his shin with his head. Magnus shakes his head in disgust, turning to leave.

“I told you before I can’t...” a woman says.

Magnus freezes, turning his head as the door to the sanctuary, revealing the woman whose voice is speaking for Istus. He watches as she finishes what she’s saying, some benign platitude of thanks, but he knows which words are for him. He remembers asking Istus about this same thing before, he remembers her answer, but it hurts nonetheless.

“Truly, I can’t thank you enough for all of this,” the woman repeats.

Luca strides out into the sanctuary, his hand on a woman’s shoulder. “No, no need to thank us, we’re here to serve Lady Istus. Ah! Magnus, what brings you to Refuge?”

Magnus shrugs, giving the woman a lackluster wave as she beams at him. She holds a brown canvas bag of food and what looks like clothing.

“Nothing much,” he says after the woman leaves. “I just… It was time for a visit.”

Luca nods, watching Magnus curiously. Magnus wants to squirm away from his gaze, tired and underwhelmed by the ‘answer’ he’d received from Istus so far.

“Everything alright here?” he asks instead, nodding towards the heavy double doors.

“Just a member of the congregation. She’s a pilgrim here, to Refuge specifically. We see a lot of those, now, after the Song.”

“I see.”

Luca’s brows pinch together. “Sit, Magnus. I don’t think you came to discuss the newest Caleb Cleveland novel.”

Magnus snorts. “And what gives you that impression? I can totally read.”

Luca shakes his head with a genial grin. “It’s just that… After a while, you get good at recognizing a pilgrim when you see one,” he says. “And you, Magnus, look an awful lot like one.”

Magnus licks his lips and looks down at his dusty hands and clay-stained clothes. “Well, you caught me,” he says.

“There is no shame in being pious, Magnus,” Luca says gently. “Especially when you’ve _met_ Our Lady, and have been through so much.”

“I just… I came to get an answer, really, but… I’d already gotten it a long time ago,” he sighs. He reaches up and runs a hand through his hair.

He looks away from Luca, to the stained glass, to the candles, waiting, waiting, waiting. She’d shown herself before, so why not now? Why not when he so desperately needs her?

“It’s just. Does it bother you that you serve this goddess, and she—she’s _Fate_ , she creates destinies and weaves whatever bullshit you spout out in services, but bad shit still happens? You were a walking skeleton, for fuck’s sake—and why? To serve her purposes? Does that ever bother you? That people die, and people call it fate, and she says she can’t change it? Because it fucking bothers me, Luca. It bothers me.”

Luca studies him in silence, eyes fixed on Magnus’s face. He’s quiet for a long moment, then takes a slow breath. He sits in a pew and looks up at the glass visage of Istus.

“Time and fate was sick in Refuge for a long time, Magnus. It was hard. But Her Lady’s grace provided us a cure, and—”

“That was _my_ fault! I made that stupid cup, and it fucked all of you over! Jack and June and Isaak and you—that was my fault, it’s not like it’s some child with the hiccups or something, it wasn’t fate, it was just us, screwing you over!”

“Your time was sick for much longer, Magnus,” Luca says, gaze still fixed on his. “And unfortunately, the only way to fix sick time is _time_. But this is not about your Relics or your story, is it?”

Magnus looks down at Luca, who stares, steadfast, up at him. Like the candles, years before, his anger ignites.

“My wife, she died, and Lucretia… she helped it happen. Istus, the Raven Queen, Pan—they all have power, they’re all _real_ , they can do, they can _stop_ these things! Why would any god do that, why would they let that happen,” he snarls, grabbing Luca’s robes. “If they _knew_ , why would it happen?”

“Because time ends, eventually,” Luca says, taking his hands. “And that is what we celebrate in Istus’ domain. Perhaps Her Lady Death could answer _why_ ; Istus only winds threads, and all stories end. You and yours are entwined so tightly that entanglement is inevitable. Perhaps that’s why you’re bothered.”

“I don’t want a perhaps, I want a _reason_ ,” Magnus insists angrily. He shakes Luca. “I used to feel like there was a _reason_ , like there was something I had that told me that Julia’s death meant something, that I could, I could get through it because—because there was something I had to do for her, but I have nothing, this is senseless, I can’t find a single reason in this at all!”

“Lady Istus only weaves the threads that the world gives her, makes the most beautiful pattern of what she has. All of us serve a higher fate than what we know. Your wife… she had her own story and fate as well, Magnus. I am confident that Istus wove her the most beautiful fate, one that was complete and fulfilling to her.”

Magnus shakes Luca again, lifting him onto his toes. “I don’t care about that shit! I don’t care if the big fucking picture is the best thing on the planet,” he shouts. “I loved her, all she wanted was to do good, so why was _she_ the casualty?!”

Luca lifts Magnus’ hands from his shoulders and holds them between them.

“Perhaps to you, you feel like your wife was the most important thread in your life—and she for you. But this truth also exists: that you were _only_ a thread in her story. She was complete in her life, and from what I have heard of Julia Waxman in the days after the Story, Magnus, she had a fate just as important as yours, long before you arrived in her story.”

“I don’t care about that,” Magnus hisses, “I don’t care, why did she have to die? Why couldn’t she have—why couldn’t Istus stop that, surely she could see how much it hurt, why doesn’t she _care_?”

“Of course the gods care, Magnus,” Luca says, “Just because something hurts doesn’t mean it’s the absence of care.”

“Then _why_? Why did Julia die, why was that the only path that could lead us here, to this? Why did Lucretia feel the urge to make the things she did, the decisions she made, why couldn’t Istus _see_ and make it different?! Because this, this whole non-interference thing, it’s bullshit. I’ve high-fived her, you can’t say there’s never any interference!”

Luca sighs, and closes his eyes. “Trust and faith, Magnus, that’s all any of us ever have,” he says softly.

“But that doesn’t, that doesn’t _help_ ,” Magnus says. “Why is it worse now, than before? I was never this angry, I never believed in anything before, it didn’t hurt this bad before, so why?”

“I can’t answer that. But you can, if you reflect upon it long enough,” Luca says softly.

Magnus sighs and shakes his head. “I, I’ve tried. I can’t,” he says. “I can’t make sense of it.”

“Then not enough time has passed,” Luca says simply. “Death, loss, the end of things, things that were good and wonderful, they all come. For a time, it feels like the end of the world has happened; but for everything that has ended, something new starts.”

“That’s shit, and you know it, the dead are the dead, they don’t come back,” Magnus snarls.

“No, they don’t,” Luca says softly. “That’s right. But those who are still alive, keep their memories. How are you keeping Julia’s memory, Magnus? Would she have liked the way you’re keeping her alive within yourself?”

Magnus inhales sharply, feeling the words like a slap in the face. “That’s—” he stammers, stepping back.

At his feet, Johann whines, nosing his shin anxiously. “That’s, she—”

Luca tucks his hands into his pockets, nodding. “Time,” he says softly. “Is something we never have in the abundance we need. I think you know the feeling of wanting more. And the consequences. But that’s what you need, Magnus. Time. Time and something to take your mind off the sting of it.”

“Well, what the fuck am I supposed to _do_ about that? I carve, I train the dogs, I work, but it’s all I can think of, all of it. How it’s tangled together, how I was used, how she was, how she was _taken_ from me. If Lucretia hadn’t, if she,” his voice falters, dies.

He sighs and runs his hands over his face. “What am I supposed to do, then, when it’s all I can think of?”

There’s a thud behind them, followed by the clattering of something rolling. Luca gives a small smile, then gestures forward. “Well, that, I would think,” he says easily.

He strides forwards and picks up a knitting bowl mid-wobbling roll from where it had fallen from the altar behind Magnus. He looks for a moment at the altar, then closes his eyes for a brief second, hand hovering over the table.

He opens them, chuckles, and plucks up a set of needles. He turns to Magnus, a smug grin widening on his face.

“It seems you dropped something of yours.”

“This isn’t mine,” Magnus protests. He takes it anyway.

Luca claps him on the shoulder. “Are you sure?”

Magnus swallows hard, turning the yarn bowl and needles in his hands. “Can’t be.”

He clears his throat, slowly tracing the grain of the wood. Every detail of this bowl, down to the precise patterns on the lip of the bowl. He knows the design, slips his fingers to the bottom of the bowl and feels a signature at the bottom. His stomach lurches, then drops.

Julia’s pattern, the one she stamped on the foot of every chair, the base of every chest, the hilt of every sword or hammer she forged. This isn’t some imitation, pulled from his mind.

This is the real thing, the exact same knitting bowl and needles Julia had whittled away at for weeks before presenting them to him a few nights before he left for that exhibition in Neverwinter.

He always liked doing things with his hands, even when he wasn’t working. Normally, that meant carving little toys to give out to the gaggle of children that adored Julia so they wouldn’t pester them when he was angling to get some time alone with her in the shop, but he’d expressed once that he’d like to learn how to knit. She’d given him that crooked grin she got when she was teasing and told him to wait until they were ready for kids

She’d been ready then. He’d been ready. Getting the title at that expo was all they needed for a life where they could provide for each other, for a child. And it had all been lost. Julia, his home, his work, this bowl and needles, the chance for a family. All of it had gone up in flames.

“This shouldn’t… this shouldn’t even _exist_ right now,” he says, sitting down in a pew. He cradles the bowl in his hands, tracing the grain over and over. “Julia… she…”

He bends forward, hands clasped like a prayer around it, face between his knees, and sobs.

Luca stands before him, and places his hands on Magnus’ shoulders.

“There are things we lose in life,” Luca says once Magnus’ sobs have eased. “That’s the nature of things. Just because someone is gone, it doesn’t mean they are lost forever. The things we remember, the things we cherished, these are the things that we are knit of.”

“Your love for Julia, for your time together, for the plans you made and cherished, they kept you here, they kept you grounded,” Luca says. “Those things are never gone. Nothing can take those from you as long as you keep them with you. Our Lady may not intervene in the ways we may want, but, the small things, Magnus… She is in all of them. Magnus, Istus has not abandoned you, you know.”

Luca kneels and taps the bowl in Magnus’ hands. “Maybe it’s not my place to say it, but between friends, she’s real fond of giving those rules a bit of a stretch.”

“You’re expecting me to believe,” Magnus manages, his voice rough and almost a growl. He scrubs his hand across his face, smearing tears and snot against his hand and cheek. “That a goddess just… just _threw_ this at me.”

Luca shrugs and spreads his hands out. “Weirder things have happened,” he says with a wry grin. He leans back on his heels, “Skeleton, time bubble, remember?”

“Right. Right.”

Magnus shudders back another sob, quietly taking a handkerchief from Luca. He wipes his face with one hand, pressing the bowl to his chest with the other.

“What… do I do now?”

Luca waves away the handkerchief as he stands. “Well, we have a lovely collection of yarn in the back and quite a collection of patterns. People bring them as offerings, knit while they stay. It’s like a library, a little. I think it would be fine if you borrowed some of our beginner’s patterns. We have some wobbly bookshelves, and if you were so inclined to fix them, we could throw in some yarn. Heard a little bard song that says you’re real good at shelves.”

“You’re really… you’re really saying that Istus… wants me to learn to knit,” Magnus says, feeling dull and hollow with shock. He can’t even begin to address the gentle rib towards his relationship with Lucretia. He rises from the pew, following Luca behind the pulpit.

Luca brushes back a tapestry for them, and leads Magnus down a rainbow-hued hall, one wall the stained glass from the sanctuary, the other wide picture windows that look out into a courtyard. He can hear windchimes and the slow chatter of people lazy with the sun and heat.

“You are an emissary, Magnus,” Luca says gently. “You accepted the role, and Our Lady blessed you and your friends. The breadth of that promise was not fulfilled simply when you saved Refuge. Nor was it finished when you saved the world.”

“Worlds, plural. Planes, actually,” Magnus says.

Luca laughs; “It’s such a strange thing to wrap your head around, isn’t it?”

“So, what you’re saying is I’m supposed to… what _are_ you saying, Luca?” Magnus asks.

“Your promise is a life-long one,” Luca says. “People will always associate you with Lady Istus. Your role as her emissary was part of the Song, and people will remember that. She favored you, and by living your life, you are a testament to her grace. She doesn’t want you to suffer, Magnus.”

Luca pushes open a wooden door. The room that opens up before them is a textile worker’s dream:

There’s an entire wall built to hold skeins of yarn, honeycombed little cubbies carved into the wall, floor to ceiling, with delicate library ladders at intervals. They’re arranged by color, each hue restarting again and again, separated by little markers that denote weight and material. Silks and wools and cotton and combinations. There’s even a section for the metal fabric that Magnus recognizes from the shrines on the roads.

Between each section of color, there are even smaller cubbies for needles, some as thick as two of Magnus’ fingers, some connected by a thin strand of wire, crochet hooks, sewing supplies. Embroidery hoops hang on another wall, as small as a coin to the size that Magnus is most familiar with from watching Julia stitch ducks onto handkerchiefs.

He sees spinning wheels, spindles; he’s not as familiar with these, but he recognizes the flax wheel a woman is working from the linen-maker’s shop in the old Corridor. He wishes he could place and name all of them, the looms and the wheels, and each instrument in use on the floor.

A netting of fine lace drapes over one window, casting a gauzy light over the station where a woman stitches beads into the train of a dress. Clergy sit and knit, crochet, embroider; some are dressed in simple linen robes tacked with the needle and ball symbol of Istus, others in the dirt-roughened clothes of miners. There’s a child in their mother’s lap, candy-colored thick needles unsteady in their tiny hands as they count out the cast for a small square of bright colored yarn.

“Wow,” Magnus breathes. “ _Wow_.”

His throat tightens with emotion; he misses Raven’s Roost in its heyday. This is so much like the Craftsman’s Corridor that it aches. He remembers each workshop, each of his neighbors, all of them.

But there’s another memory too, one that curls in his gut and hollows him out. Legato, the Observatory, the painting halls where he would sneak in to see Lucretia. She would like it here, she would find it peaceful and fascinated; it would take hell to make her leave a place like this.

Luca smiles. “We’re quite proud of what we’ve built here,” he says softly. “Thank you.”

“Me?”

“I told you,” Luca says. “Before the Song, this place was… Istus was a god of the past, fate was for saps. You and yours, you have done far more for Toril than you will ever know.”

“I don’t… I don’t feel like I’ve done much of anything,” Magnus says. He clutches the knitting bowl in his fingers. “Anyone would have… the things I’ve done, they’re not special.”

Luca laughs. “ _That_ is some horseshit if I’ve ever heard it.”

“They don’t _feel_ special,” Magnus protests. “I don’t, I sort of feel like a shit person, honestly.”

Luca taps his bowl thoughtfully. “That’s why you’re important, you know? It’s a strange thing, to be tasked to bring hope to people. It’s hard. Sometimes, you use all your hope up on others,” he muses.

He steps forward, beckoning Magnus forward. “This here is the sort of yarn you’re gonna want to start with, it’s wool, worsted. So we can start you with some practice squares—”

“Uh… can, can I make something?” Magnus asks. “And what are you even saying?”

Luca smirks and chuckles. “Wool is from sheep—”

“I know what wool is,” he snaps, though without the heat of true irritation. “The other thing.”

“It’s the weight, worsted is the best for the size needles you’ve got there, best to start with,” Luca says. “Now, you said you want to _make_ something?”

Luca scratches his chin as Magnus nods. “Usually we have the kids make small things. Dish cloths. Useful. But we can set you up making a scarf, if you’d like. Color preference?”

Magnus surveys the wall of yarn before them, and an image materializes in his mind: Julia, laughing as he tucked violets in her hair.

Then, Lucretia, the purple sky dark with storm as they walked up to the Starblaster for the first time, all tired and hungover as shit, but so so excited.

He thinks of her dark skin and her wardrobe of blues and silvers, and his gut churns with a strange mixture of anger and longing.

Where is she? What is she doing? Why did she think what she did was okay? 

“...I think, purple, that… the violet-colored one,” he says quietly.

Luca nods and pulls down a few skeins for Magnus. “Let’s get you started on that, and we’ll see if we can get you on a path to a new focus, yeah?”

He claps Magnus on the shoulder and leads him forward.

Hours later, when the light through the windows in the knitting room has started to dim and Magnus’ patience has worn thin, Luca sets down his book.

“Well, then,” he says, looking highly amused at Magnus’ uneven and mangled attempt at a scarf. “You’re doing pretty well.”

Magnus rubs his tendons slowly, starting his post-carving stretching routine, taught twice over to him through his years.

“Uh. Sure I am,” he says, snorting. “It sucks. I don’t feel any more focused, and it is. Well it’s shitty.”

Luca shrugs. “What else did you expect?”

Magnus pauses and shrugs. He feels a bit foolish to admit that he thought… he thought he’d feel some sort of connection, immediately, with Istus. That because he was chosen, he’d tap into some divine knowledge. That  _this_ would be his answer, his candlestick, his tug from time. 

The sucking, well. That _is_ to be expected. “I just… I thought it would be… I thought it would be my answer. I thought Istus would show up or something.”

“Who’s to say it won’t be, once you learn how to ask the question?”

Magnus snorts again, then laughs. “Okay, Fantasy Yoda. I get it.”

Luca grins and picks up his book once more. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Magnus. I’ll show you the things that need fixing up. For now, I think you should head on over to the Davy Lamp.”

Magnus grins and gathers his things. His rucksack has been delivered to the knitting room from the sanctuary hours ago, and Johann had been kept company by every single child that had run through the room. He carefully bundles Julia’s bowl and needles in the middle of his bag and whistles for Johann.

“I’ll see you later then,” Magnus says.

Luca nods and waves, already absorbed into whatever volume of _Caleb Cleveland_ he’s reading.

The walk to the Davy Lamp is short, familiar. How many times did they walk it during the loop? How many times did he go when Jack had saved him? Surely not more than a handful, but Refuge has a way of feeling like home to him. Most places, they feel comfortable, but here, here is the seed that planted home within him.

He won’t lie—when he pushes the doors open, there’s the slightest bit of trepidation. The last time he’d seen June and Roswell—and Cassidy and Redmond and all the others—was two years ago during the aftermath of the Hunger’s attack.

There hadn’t been a whole lot of time, then, to do a lot of talking or catching up—just the cursory things, making sure everyone was okay, thanking them, before they all piled back into Redmond and Luca’s carriage to make it back to town to clean up on their own.

Seventeen, she’s seventeen now, the little girl he met is long grown up, and he has the strangest position of having seen her grow up while he never aged a bit. He feels a sense of responsibility for her—he remembers her crawling into Jack’s lap, peering at him across the fire, as he tried to explain who he was and where he came from, a kid himself, with a cup that sang to them.

He remembers showing them, June on his knee as he used the cup to catch a single butterfly out of time, her squeal of delight as its wings blurred as it caught up to the few minutes he’d stopped it for.

And then, he forgot. She didn’t—or rather, she, as the relic, hadn’t forgotten him. It knew him, and he’d seen June at eight, at eighty, without Jack, the cup poised in her grasp.

And then, seven years. She went to school, to the temple, to the mines, to the statue of her and her father and Magnus. She went to Magnus too, on the edge of the bubble.

He hadn’t cherished it as much as he should have, watching her grow. He wished that Jack could have.

And now, here he is again. To the town he ruined by keeping it safe. One more on the roster of places he’s left in worse states than he found it. One more on a long, long list.

He almost turns and leaves, bile bitter in the back of his throat. What is he doing? How dare he try to come here, after what he’s _done_? The temple is one thing, but he… all these people had to _die_ over and over, because of him.

“There you are! Magnus!”

Magnus looks overhead as something red swoops through one of the upper windows of the saloon, straight at him.

Roswell flies around his head and then settles themselves on the windowsill. “We’ve been waiting for hours!”

“Uh, well, I had business at the temple,” Magnus says, laughing at the way Roswell ruffles their feathers up.

“It’s not me you have to explain it to, there’s someone else who’s been waiting for you to show up all afternoon!”

“Really?”

Roswell flicks a wing, like shrugging a shoulder. “Would I lie to you, now? I saw you the second you came on into the town. I like to keep an eye on who’s coming and going you know.”

Magnus snorts. “Thought you retired.”

“Habits are hard to break,” Roswell says. “Now, stop loitering!”

Magnus laughs and pushes through the saloon doors. He’s acutely aware of how the chatter’s gone silent, and has probably _been_ silent ever since Roswell flew out of the room. There are so many familiar faces that his heart seizes.

Home to him is people, and there are so many people here, there, everywhere, that know him, want to talk to him, that he feels so insignificant to the homes he’s offered. He raises a hand in greeting.

“Hail and well met?” he tries.

There’s the sound of someone setting down a tray, and Magnus looks over to find June with her hands on her hips, a stern scowl on her face.

“You don’t even come to say hello even though you showed up ages ago?” she scolds.

“Look! I was telling Roswell I had something to do, and if a certain little bird hadn’t snitched I was here,” he says, looking over his shoulder towards Roswell, “It’d be a great surprise, right Junebug? Like, I would show up and _bam_ , surprise! So, uh, surprise?”

Her scowl breaks as she steps forward, running headlong into Magnus the moment he opens his arms up for a hug.

Her arms are tight around him as she laughs. “Welcome back, Magnus.”

It almost sounds like _welcome home_.


	27. Continuation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well can you even believe this fic is about to turn one! Wow. And we're (almost) halfway there (woooa-oh!). Somehow my "oneshot about a dog" has lasted nearly 80k words, a year, and a lot of slowburn feels.
> 
> As a note, pairing tags were updated last chapter, this is the last chance to check them; I'm a multishipping goblin and I'm not sorry. Polyblaster 4 lyfe??

Time is a strange thing. Sometimes it hovers, crystalline and solid in the air; others, it slips, fluid, through her grasp.

Before she even realizes it, winter bleeds into early spring. Muffin grows ever larger and fluffier, and completes her training. Maureen’s birthday comes and goes without word from Lucas, but (she notes that Avi takes the day off); Angus makes the senior soccer team; Barry and Lup buy a house and begin to start making their own tea blends. Barry is a perpetual presence at the Bureau, sometimes with Lup, sometimes without, but there enough that he’s one of the first volunteers to be added to the payroll come the new fiscal year.

One day, when the daffodils and snow bells start to peek out from the frost in Neverwinter, Barry gets a call from Magnus about his dogs. He’s still off doing whatever it is he’s doing, and he’ll continue to do it.

She stays silent through the call, eyes locked with Barry’s as she barely even breathes. As Barry backs out of her office, she hears just a little bit of the situation:

He’s in Refuge, and he wants his dogs, and Lucretia forces herself to be ambivalent. It’s better not to think of it, she tells herself, curling her fingers into Muffin’s soft fur. There is so much still to do.

Barry goes, and when he comes back the next day, she doesn’t ask how it went. Whatever life-changing adventures Magnus is on now, well, they’re none of her business.

Spring slips by into summer with little fanfare at all.

Despite the fact that the ceremony for Neverwinter’s rebuilding was over a year prior, there are still odds and ends to tie up bureaucratically. While everything within Neverwinter itself goes smoothly, more and more reports of unrest, resistance, and outright refusal come pouring in from other, smaller towns the Bureau, in conjunction with Artemis Sterling, have offered aid to.

First, there are pieces in the paper, then the letters start to pour in. One after another after another that get thrown out; the vitriol with which they’re penned startles Lucretia, who has never quite had to face being in the public eye as she is now, but is old hat to Sterling’s council.

Then they start arriving at her apartment. Her status as one of the saviors of the planar system deters none of the more fervervent protestors, a problem that doesn’t seem to happen to the boys or Lup or Barry. Lup postulates that it’s because no one’s seen her fight, and it makes her an easy target. Sterling says it’s just because people are assholes.

Lucretia knows whom she’s more inclined to believe, and she tosses them out, one by one, without reading them.

But then the cursed items start to pour in, one after another after another, until Barry spells the mailroom at the Neverwinter office to be safe.

She quietly moves out of her apartment in Neverwinter on Sterling’s advice; they’re weeks out from catching the group responsible, and his advising council did have a point.

Caution never hurt anyone.

There are still dormitories on the moonbase, of course, but so many people come and go that Lucretia feels alone now, more than ever. Before, she kept herself apart from her employees out of necessity, out of a desire to appear untouchable.

Now, there’s game nights, team-building, the daily struggle over who gets to walk Muffin that she forgets that she’s not _home_. And then they leave for the day, and she has to walk down her hall and sit in her office until they’re all gone, pretending she’s one more paper away from leaving because she’s been advised to keep her new living arrangements a secret.

Once everyone is either asleep, or long gone, she goes to her room and sits, watching the planet turn beneath their lonely satellite and she aches with how patently alone she feels.

It gets hard to haul herself up out of bed.

Why bother? The work she so prided herself on is only putting her staff in danger, is only putting innocent civilians who wanted safe lives in danger. Her library might be built, Neverwinter might be complete, but there are towns, cities, entire swathes of countryside that are still scarred by the Relics, and she can’t do a thing about it.

Why?

She thought she was doing so well. She’d been doing so well. That she’d finally taken back her life from the overwhelming bleakness that swallows her, from the pain and the insomnia and the isolation. That she’d become a person that was worth _something_ , anything.

But the reports come in, one after another. Towns whose names had been forgotten, trade routes overrun, weapons and fighting and people suffering because she made people forget and now the knowledge is too much. Darkness flourished when a blind eye had been turned to these parts of Faerun, and now, it’s being brought to light.

She hasn’t fixed anything at all. She’s still just as terrible as before, selfish, untrustworthy, and ruinous.

So many of them had found the happy ending they all deserved, but there are just as many still suffering, still waiting. She knows she can’t find her own ending until she does as much as she can to rectify the damage she and her fellows have created.

* * *

She turns the page of the report she’s reading—trade routes have been cut off by bandits, again—and sighs. She puts her head into her hands and tries to figure out just where everything has gone wrong.

How could such a small group of people cause _so many_ problems? And how can they even begin to tackle it when their ambassadors have been terrorized away; have been turned away by magic and blade and everything in between?

There’s a solution _somewhere_ , she’s sure of it, somewhere in between what she and Sterling are trying and the outcome these… these marauders want. She’s never been great at thinking outside the box; she’s spent so long with other people who coax imagination out of the very air around them that it’s always just been easier for her to deal with the fine details.

A third option, she tells herself. There’s always a third option; don’t forget and learn it the hard way.

She rubs her temples and puts her head on her desk, watching Muffin out of the corner of her eye. She’d put in a doggie bed by her desk, and Muffin’s curled up there, her paws twitching in sleep. She could crawl onto the floor and put her face against Muffin’s side and just lay there for a while, everyone’s gone home for the night and her fur really is soft… there’s nothing really stopping her from doing it other than her bad leg.

It wouldn’t hurt to put her work aside just for a while and play with Muffin…

She huffs and runs a hand through her hair. “I’ve got to do _something_ ,” she tells herself, scooting her chair back up to her desk as she sits up.

There’s a knock at her door, and her heart lurches in surprise. Muffin bolts upright from her bed and starts to bark, her tail wagging so hard it thumps against Lucretia’s shins. It cracks open, and in files Killian, Carey, and Brad.

“You three,” she says, “What on earth? I thought everyone had gone home!”

“We noticed, uh, we noticed you were pullin’ some long nights here, boss,” Killian says uncomfortably. “So uh… Me and Carey went to, to go bring you some dinner? At your apartment?”

“Oh shit,” Lucretia breathes. “Oh shit, uh.”

“Shit is right!” Carey declares, pointing one clawed finger at Lucretia. “We thought’d you’d been kidnapped!”

“Uh. Well, obviously, I’m here, so, all is well?”

Brad clears his throat. “Which prompted me to look into how long you’ve really been burning the night oil,” he says. “Especially when I get a phone call about you being outright _missing_ from your own _home_.”

“I called him,” Carey volunteers. “To see if you’d been kidnapped. Bossnapped. Whichever.”

“Oh hell,” Lucretia groans.

Brad scowls and crosses his arms. “I made some calls once I figured out that you were here,” he says. “Avi says that the power grids are reading that you’re occupying your office for far longer than you’re saying you are. And that you’re staying up here again.”

Lucretia scowls— she should have known better than to think Avi would be able to keep that secret, especially when Brad’s the one asking around.

“Okay, so, maybe I’m living up here again,” she says evasively. “It’s safest right now, so no worries, none at all.”

“Did you know we have a mandatory vacation policy?” Brad says as Killian and Carey trade the smuggest grins Lucretia’s ever seen, and she’s seen her fair share of smugness. “And that you’re the only employe of the Bureau who _hasn’t_ taken theirs?”

“Now, I’m sure there’s an exemption for myself, and I’m not really sure what I’d do with a vacation, much less who would be able to cover for me,” Lucretia says. “The situation outside of Neverwinter is increasingly volatile and… oh boy. I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“No,” the three of them say in unison. “You don’t.”

“We called Lup,” Carey supplies smugly.

“We’ll see you in three weeks,” Brad says.

* * *

Lucretia jolts awake, suddenly and uncomfortably aware of being in a bed that’s unfamiliar, in a dark room. In that same way, she’s aware that someone is leaning against the side of the bed, and she grabs her wand from under the pillow and jabs it forward.

“Hey, hey, that’s my tit,” Lup complains.

Lucretia pokes her again for good measure, then rolls onto her back, hand over her heart as it thuds uncomfortably in her chest. The bed shifts as Muffin jumps back up onto the bed, pushing her nose up against Lucretia’s chin.

She sighs, pressing her hand harder against her sternum. She reminds herself where she is: Lup and Barry’s Goldcliff home, after being shanghaied into a vacation.

It’s just her and Lup, though, with Barry off doing some strange ‘boys only’ mission with Kravitz— one she’d think was too convenient to be true, if not for the amount Lup bitched at Barry before he left the night before.

A hot doggy breath blooms across her cheek; she pushes Muffin’s snout away gently.

“Lucretia,” Lup sings softly. Lucretia closes her eyes as tightly as she can. She knows that voice.

“No.”

Light blooms in the room, a dim impression of a candle. It grows, warm and fuzzy until it seems like some miniature sunrise peeking through the curtains.

Lucretia squints in the soft light, catching an eyeful of Lup. “I can see your whole-ass ass,” she grumbles, rolling over back into the pillows.

Lup’s knees hit the bed and she rolls Lucretia back over. “I didn’t half-ass my ass, babe,” she laughs. “Get up.”

“It’s still dark, I don’t know why this elf in her underwear—“

“They’re workout clothes, come on,” Lup complains.

Lucretia continues her commentary. “Is waking me up, when this is a _staycation_.”

Muffin snuggles against her side, tail thumping.

“Sunrise yoga, baby!”

“God,” Lucretia groans. “Really?”

“Yep, every day.”

“Go on without me,” Lucretia mumbles, dragging the pillow over her head.

“Oh, hell naw.”

Lup tugs the pillow from her hands and drapes herself over Lucretia. “You’re gonna do some sunrise yoga with cha’girl,” she says. “Come outside.”

Muffin gives a little huff, pushing her paws onto Lucretia’s arms as her tail speeds up. She starts to whine, and then she starts to wiggle, her tail loud against the sheets.

Lucretia groans. “You said the word, that’s worse than the other word.”

“What? Outside? _Walk_?”

Muffin leaps from the bed, her nails clacking against the hardwood floor as she races back and forth. Lucretia sits up and knocks her forehead against Lup’s.

“I hate you with every fibre of my being. Is there coffee?”

“Afterwards,” Lup promises. “I brought you some clothes to wear.”

She rolls off of Lucretia, bouncing off the edge of the bed. Lucretia studies Lup’s form, the little glowing ball of light she’d summoned now brightening the entire room.

Lup grins at her and points at a small pile of clothes at the foot of the bed, all lanky limbs and toned muscle. She’s still as lithe and freckled as ever and Lucretia’s heart sinks as she takes in the form-fitting shorts and loose crop top.

“I uh,” Lucretia says slowly. “I need to take my potions and things before anything.”

“Yeah, duh,” Lup says, kneeling down to fluff Muffin’s ears.

Lucretia curls her fingers into the sheets. She’s aware, more than she’s ever been, of the state of her body. An uncertainty that’s been unfamiliar to her these past few months rises in her and quakes in her stomach.

“Lup, I… I can’t do this,” she says. “I’m… I can’t.”

“I’ll go easy on you, yoga’s more about mindfulness and the movement than being able to hit all the poses.”

“No,” Lucretia says, voice shaking. “The… I can’t wear your clothes anymore, Lup. I’m not, I’m not…”

Lup eases herself up onto the bed, taking Lucretia’s hand into hers. “Hey, Miss Ma’am, you’re not being self conscious of your body, are you?” she asks gently. “I know you’re not twenty anymore, and between you and me, you’re killin’ the silver fox category.”

Lucretia shakes her head, looking at the sleeveless top on the bed; she knows Lup knows about her scars, the ones on her arms at least, because she’d worn tees to bed during the time Lup had stayed with her after Magnus, but the idea of going out, bare, into the world, with _Lup_ …

And lord, imagine if she didn’t even _fit_ into them?

She hasn’t felt this inadequate since before the beach year— Lup has always been gorgeous, and she has always been shy, but Lup had taken those fears and molded them into something else so long ago that the force of her anxiety shakes her down to her core.

Lup turns Lucretia’s hand in hers and slowly pushes up the silken sleeve of the robe Lucretia slept in. She touches one of the oval burn scars on the inside of her elbow.

“I know,” Lup says softly. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t, but they… they were put on you with necromancy, and when I’m around you, between forms, it… They’re a void on you, so much of you is marred with it, my… my poor baby girl,” she whispers, her voice cracking.

Lucretia feels like she’s been struck with electricity. Lup’s fingers, gentle on her skin, her voice soft, the long lost pet-name; all of it is so strikingly intimate that her head spins. Lup turns her palm back over and threads their fingers together, laying her head on her shoulder.

“I can find you something with longer sleeves,” Lup offers. “It’s just… it’s sticky and hot out there, already. Summer’s in full force already, and I didn’t want you getting sick in the humidity.”

Lucretia rests her cheek against Lup’s head, feeling the way her ears flick against her neck as they perk up.

Twelve years since Lup had vanished. And before that, six, since the Arcaneum. Eighteen years. Eighteen years since she’d been Lup’s _baby girl_.

“What’s this all about?” Lucretia asks, untangling them so she can rise from the bed.

“Mm?”

Lup watches her, the tips of her ears twitching as Lucretia starts to gather up her various tinctures for the morning. The potion for her anxiety and the one for the melancholy that sinks into her bones, the herbs for the ache in her bad leg, the ones for her arthritis. A treat for Muffin, who whines when Lucretia forgets the vitamin she’s started taking just for good measure.

“All of this,” Lucretia says once everything’s been portioned out and taken. She opens the drawer she dumped her clothes in the night before, and rummages about for a clean set of undergarments.

She feels herself flush as she turns and finds Lup’s undivided attention still on her. She scoops Muffin up off of the floor and drops her into Lup’s lap. “Don’t peek. Pet Muffin, she’s going to pee everywhere if she doesn’t get attention.”

“Oh, sure, put the dog full of pee on me, sure!” Lup complains. She covers her eyes with one arm while she starts to scratch Muffin’s belly with her other.

Lucretia strips down, wriggling and tugging and hopping to get herself into the leggings Lup set out for her. She jams herself into the sports bra, snorting as she catches Lup peeking. “I should have known.”

She crosses her arms over her stomach, lips pursed. “Well, when in Fantasy Rome,” she says, ignoring the tank set out for her. “We’ll match, I guess.”

Lup picks up Muffin’s paws and wiggles them. “Are you sure?” she asks, ducking her face into Muffin’s fur so it seems like Muffin is talking. “You don’t have to do what you don’t want to.”

Lucretia laughs and Lup peeks out from over Muffin’s head. “Don’t manhandle my dog,” she scolds, even though Muffin’s tongue lolls out happily. “She’s a serious worker.”

“Aw beans,” Lup laughs. She lets Muffin jump out of her lap, then stands, stretching her hands over her head. “So, yoga, and then breakfast,” she announces.

Lucretia lets Lup lead her out of the house to their back garden. Merle’s handiwork is everywhere, as well as the touch of the two Relic-touched dryads—flowers and trees bloom throughout the yard, nestling Lup and Barry’s little house out of the suburban eye. Lup’s strung up little hanging lanterns, each filled with a softly flickering fire. One of the two twin rivers that surround Goldcliff rushes at the periphery of their backyard.

Lucretia aches with how happy she is that they’ve found their home. It was always everyone’s dream to make a home, but Lup wanted it with a voraciousness that might have given even the Hunger a run for its money. It hurts, but she’s so happy.

In the darkness, Lucretia can sense the spellwork there, laid by Barry, Lup, and even Taako, that keeps their yard from flooding, that protects it from wildlife and nasty bugs. No spell in the world, though, can save the air from the unrelenting humidity that makes Lucretia glad she forewent a shirt despite the scars marring her body.

It’s odd to have them out in the open again—she’s spent so long in heavy robes and fine silks and long dresses that she forgot the lightness that comes without them. Not since Maureen has she… She dismisses the thought with a long exhale.

Lup steps past the patio, into the short grass, and Muffin tears off after a moth, yipping happily. Lucretia’s glad to see a silencing spell shimmer into life at the edge of the property, admiring the spellwork until Lup laughs.

“Nerd alert! I’ll tell Barold you were getting starry eyed over his property boundaries,” Lup teases. She makes a little gesture with her hand and two yoga mats unfurl themselves in the air.

One is black and covered with flames; the other is denim-patterned. Lucretia quickly steps onto the one that is obviously Lup’s. Lup snickers.

“Okay, so I’m on the mat. Am I doing yoga yet?” Lucretia asks.

Lup steps to the center of her mat. “Har har, you’re real cute, babe,” she says. “So, this is new, me talking through the routine, so bear with me. Me and Barry go out about once a week now, go to a class, and then copy it here at home.”

Lucretia watches as Lup settles down on her mat, crossing her legs together with her hands on her knees. She sinks down and copies the movement, facing Lup.

“I still think it’s wild that you and Barry have settled into this crunchy we-meditate-and-do-yoga-and-go-to-farmer’s-markets thing,” Lucretia says.

Lup laughs and shrugs. She rolls her shoulders and stretches her neck. “Well,” she says slowly. “I…when you and Magnus…”

Lup’s voice trails off awkwardly, face pinching in consternation. “Fought?”

“Broke up,” Lucretia says. The flatness in her voice unnerves even her, but the ache of the thing is still there. “You can say broke up. It’s… that’s essentially what happened.”

Lup grimaces. “When you and Magnus broke up,” she says softly. “I had to realize that…when we argued about how you deserve to be treated, I realized that I was… I was unbalanced. I needed grounding. So I talked to Barry,” she says.

Lup sighs. “And Barry, of course, talked to Merle.”

Lucretia chuckles and nods. “Of course, yeah. Finally, Merle gets used against _you_.”

“It helped, though! It helped focus me, focus Barry. _We’d_ even gotten unbalanced, the two of us, together,” Lup says. “So we keep doing it. Merle’s advice was to focus our anxieties, put them into doing something else, and _of course_ he suggested a little herb garden too. Anyway. Right now, we’re going to start off with some mindful meditation.”

Lup closes her eyes and breathes in. “So copy my breathing patterns. In through the nose, then hold, and out through the mouth. Standard, you know the pattern.”

Lucretia closes her eyes and breathes in, feeling a bit silly. Especially when Muffin comes and plants her paws right between her shoulder blades, damp with dew.

“Ignore the weight on your shoulders,” Lup says archly, snickering. She draws her syllables out, obviously mocking some instructor that Lucretia doesn’t know; somehow, through some magic that is uniquely Lup, Lucretia finds it funny instead of isolating. “The world is not a burden here. Neither are dogs.”

“Lup,” Lucretia laughs.

She twists and pulls Muffin around to her lap, where she wriggles excitedly, snapping at nothing in particular. She eventually settles as Lucretia smoothes her fur in time with her breathing.

“Don’t think,” Lup says quietly. She pauses for a moment, then exhales slowly. “Now stand and copy me.”

Lucretia opens her eyes, meeting Lup’s gaze. There’s still a hint of playfulness there, something that Lucretia is always, always thankful for; for ten long years, the memory of Lup that was the most recent, the most striking, was of her sallow and desperate and serious. This is more of who she loved, plus something new in the loose way Lup holds herself in her peace.

Lup smiles. “So keep your shoulders flat, back straight, with your feet shoulder length apart, and then lift up.”

Muffin curls around her ankles, and Lucretia nudges her away with her toes, copying Lup as she lifts her hands above her head.

There is something in the way that Lup moves that’s a form of meditation all on its own; Lucretia watches her shift with fluid grace that eases her breathing, fills her with warmth and comfort, even as she struggles to hold the ever increasingly difficult poses.

It becomes strikingly obvious, very quickly, she’s no longer in the same shape she was before the Hunger came. A year of office work, away from combat training, plus her age and increasing stiffness, leaves her shaking as she tries to lean over, spread her feet three feet apart, turn her foot and touch the mat with one hand all at the same time.

Lup sighs quietly.

“Hey,” she starts.

Lucretia wobbles as her foot slides a little across the mat. She digs her toes in and tries to remember to breathe. “Mm?”

“Barry’s worried about some of the things that have passed through the Bureau,” Lup says quietly.

Lucretia sighs and struggles to keep her arms aligned with her shoulders. “It’s, it’s nothing. If he wants to stop working he’s more than welcome to.”

“No, he’s. He’s worried. _I’m_ worried.”

Lup pauses and then shifts positions, effortlessly twisting so that her leg is perpendicular to the ground without even a wobble. She turns her head and look up over at Lucretia. “Half moon.”

“You’re shitting me,” Lucretia snaps. She nearly topples over. “I cannot.”

“Try,” Lup says, body trembling as she giggles. “Luuuucyyyy, half moon.”

“How? I- how? I’m _stuck_ ,” Lucretia pleads. “Help me before I eat mat.”

Lup laughs and eases herself back into standing position, then walks over. “Let’s ease you back into the Mountain,” she says.

“I can’t do a split, I’m about to do a split,” Lucretia hisses, feeling her weight shift again.

Lup holds out her hands and Lucretia grabs her arms, balancing her weight against Lup’s.

“Barry says that some of the things that come to your artifact collection aren’t just like, run-of-the-mill cursed,” she says, leaning over so Lucretia can bring one knee down onto the mat. “They’ve been deliberately made, and… frankly, he thinks some of them…”

“Oh, well,” Lucretia says slowly, comprehension dawning on her. She makes a face and studies the pinkening sky. “It’s… it’s not the first time someone’s tried to kill me. He’s right, in a fashion.”

Lup scowls down at her as Lucretia draws her legs in, kneeling now against the mat.

“Do a dog,” Lup instructs. “And what bullshit is that?”

“It isn’t,” Lucretia says. She sighs and leans forward, stretching her arms out before her. She kneels for a moment, then pushes up, arms shaking with effort to hold the pose before she eases back onto the mat before the thirty second count is up.

“Do a crescent again,” Lup instructs, resting her hand on Lucretia’s lower back.

Lucretia steps forward with one foot, then rises, lifting her hands above her head. She meets Lup’s worried gaze, and burns.

“I got stabbed,” she blurts out. Lup’s mouth falls open.

“It was, it was years ago,” Lucretia clarifies in a rush. “Someone stabbed me in the back, we were in negotiations during the middle of a melee, and a warlord decided, ‘fuck that!’ and just, right there. They had the, they had the Oculus— or, or so they _said_ — and I lost my mind a little— it was the last front line job I had as a member of the Bureau until now.”

She inhales shakily. “Maureen, she… She begged me to not— the knife missed my heart, and spine— I was wearing armor, so it just, it was just a deep cut. What scared her was me begging for you back, for my family. Lup, I was screaming for you, then. For you, Magnus, all of you. I told everyone the thrall got me, and they believed it. But, but, what I’m— it’s just, it’s nothing new, for people to want me dead,” she says. “The Bureau is changing the structure of things, it’s only natural that there’s pushback now.”

Lup holds her steady, her hands warm on her sides.

Lup looks at her, and Lucretia watches the gold spark in her eyes as the sun crests over the eaves of the little house. She might tease Lup for settling down like this, the spitfire tamed into tea-making and gardening, but Lup looks so much better these days. The haunted look she had, that Lucretia hadn’t even _realized_ was there until it was gone, is past. Her cheeks are rounded, pink, eyes no longer dulled by dark circles and red vessels; she has so many freckles, new ones pop up every time they visit.

Lup’s eyes flick across Lucretia’s body, her lashes fluttering with the movement as her lips part, showing teeth. “Lucy, I—” Lup starts, her voice hoarse.

She bites down on her lip and eases her hands on Lucretia’s waist. Lucretia shivers as her fingers brush her stomach as they come around to her hands, pulling them slowly from above her head.

“I can’t have this conversation when you’re in a shitty, shitty crescent,” Lup mutters, face turning pink.

Lucretia swallows hard and gently squeezes Lup’s hands, easing herself up onto both feet with a little help. “Lup?”

“Lucretia, you know, you know I still love you, right?” Lup asks.

“Of course?” Lucretia says. “I mean, yeah, I know. I don’t hate your yoga, Lup. I know you’re sharing what helped you, just because I’m not a morning person doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”

Lup shakes her head. “No, not, I mean, yeah, duh. But… We used to be… I still love you, like how it used to be. Things got so… After the Arcaneum, it got…Hell, before that, after me and Barry went through and did the ceremony, you and I were... We never had a label, and that’s my fault, Lucy,” she says softly. “I let us just be, because I thought we were good like that.”

“I don’t, I don’t understand,” Lucretia whispers.

She thought, all those years ago, that they… Not that they were _through_ , but that they’d chosen different paths: Barry and Lup were, and still are, so obviously in love, every day, that it’s almost obnoxious. And she…

Her stomach churns and her mouth goes dry.

She’d chosen to abandon all of them.

“You and Magnus had so much to figure out after that,” Lup says, her voice breaking. She holds Lucretia’s hands tightly. “You called for him, you were dying and you wanted him, even after he was _such_ a shithead to you—not that me and Bear had been any better, but you wanted _him_ , and you _still_ want him, but I miss you so much.”

“Oh, Lup,” Lucretia sighs softly. She raises their intertwined fingers, pressing the back of her hand to Lup’s cheek. “I’m so sorry—I didn’t, I, back then, I didn’t think about… God, Lup, I don’t remember… I know you were there, I remember you finding me but I...”

Lup shakes her head as she bites down on her lip. “No, it’s dumb, you were dying, you were in pain, of course you were delirious, but I…”

Lucretia squeezes Lup’s hands tightly, letting her hand drop from Lup’s cheek. “It doesn’t change that it was more hurt on top of something that was already painful. You never mentioned it… I should have checked up on you, Lup. I’m so sorry.”

“Magnus was all weird after that,” Lup says thickly, shaking her head harder. “It was easier to just let it rest than put up with him being a wet blanket when anyone stole you away for more than two seconds, and you were, you were eating it up, him talking about little white houses and reading nooks and puppies and babies.”

“Lup,” Lucretia breathes, her heart twisting inside of her ribs. Shame creeps up her face in waves of fire, burning her eyes and tightening her throat.

She knows the daydreams she let touch her and Magnus in those late days, when he was smothering the gaping chasm they’d left within each other, when it eased into just an ache in the middle of the night, when he’d taught her to carve. It was a daydream she never got to touch with Magnus; one she never whispered to Lup. It was only though Maureen that she’d gotten little homes and reading nooks and a taste of parenthood.

(Lucas, however, was more of a bitter and painful pill than she’d reckoned on swallowing.)

“It was easier to just talk like that with Bear, too, so I did. I never touched the hard shit when it came to us, Lucy, and I’m sorry,” Lup whispers. “I ran away without even touching it. I’d promised you my _life_ , and I ran away with it.”

Lucretia shakes her head, everything within her trembling. Lup was something lost long ago, before the Relics, before Maureen, before everything; something lost not to her own mistakes, for once, but to time and circumstance.

It hurts to realize that it isn’t true, that her own selfishness was what turned Lup away, and not the cooling of feelings that sometimes happens over time.

There were times after the Arcaneum, where Lucretia ached for Lup, missed her, loved her, wanted her, but restrained her actions and tempered them with Magnus because she thought that her and Lup’s nebulous relationship had coalesced into something more closely resembling sisters than lovers. Her life for the past twenty odd years was framed along that narrative, and it knocks something free within her to realize that all those times she was wanting, Lup was wanting too.

And here, all those times she felt unloved, unwanted, especially after Magnus— and there, Lup, urging her forward, while desperately aching for the status quo.

“It’s my—” Lucretia starts but Lup presses her finger to her lips.

“No, Lucretia,” Lup says softly. “You know me, you know how scared I am when things change. I didn’t want to change _us,_ not when we’d rolled through so well for so long. Barry was scary enough, gods, but to do that with you, too? Lucretia, I was terrified. You don’t just… you don’t get two things in a row, not where I came from. No, I was too chickenshit to do anything when I realized we were drifting apart.”

Distantly, Lucretia registers the sound of Muffin barking at something, the brightness of the dawn around them, but her attention is on Lup, on the tears glistening on her lashes and the trembling of her mouth, the downward sweep of her ears.

Lup frightened is still such a foreign concept to her; even more so for Lup to be terrified of her, of just plain Lucretia, not the Director mantle she swaddles her softer parts in, and not of her, desperate and ruinous and ruthless. Just of her, as a mousy young woman just past the cusp of twenty, already stern and shy but made solemn by circumstance.

She doesn’t think she would have told Lup no. She’s only ever wanted to tell her no once, and while she lost the battle, she wasn’t _incapable_ of doing it. But then, after the Arcaneum, she’d been so jealous of the unwavering support Lup got from Barry, the ease with which Lup pulled everyone around into her orbit…

They’re all old hurts now.

“I pushed you,” Lup continues. “I wanted things to go back to _normal_ , I spent so long in that staff, just imagining, day after day, my family. Taako, Barry… you. You and Magnus and me, and Barry and Taako and me, and Dav and Merle, and when I came back, finally, finally… it was all in pieces. I did that. I broke it, Lucy, that was _me_ , and I needed it to be normal again.”

“Lup, you didn’t break us,” Lucretia whispers. She reaches out and cups Lup’s face in her hand. “We all, we all broke ourselves, we were stretched too thin and we all broke, and it’s… you have to believe that… It was...”

“It’s no one’s fault,” Lup finishes. “I know, I got the Merle lecture too.”

Lucretia snorts. “Does he know about, about this?” she asks, slowly running her thumb against the damp trail of a tear.

“Zone of Truth,” Lup whispers, sounding sheepish. “I resisted for as long as I could, but he kept asking, ‘Well, d’you think there’s anything else botherin’ you? You sure?’ until it was game over.”

Lucretia laughs, pressing their foreheads together. Lup’s eyes close and she tips her head, their noses slotting together.

“I told him his food sucked and the margaritas were watery and that I wanted my family back. I wanted Taako to stop being a dick—” Lucretia laughs once, and Lup chuckles too. “And I wanted Magnus to chill the fuck out because I, I can’t stand it, that you’re not with him, but you’re not with me either. I just wanted everything _back_.”

Lucretia rubs her thumb over Lup’s cheek, sighing softly. “Oh, Lup,” she murmurs. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize.”

Lup gives a tiny shake of her head, her breath stuttering as she inhales. “I didn’t for a long time, either. It wasn’t until everything exploded that I—”

“Pretty par the course for us,” Lucretia whispers wryly.

Lup laughs and then gives a quiet hiccupping sigh.

“Lucretia, I still love you, I want to touch you, kiss you, I want to go on stupid dates to Fantasy Cheesecake Factory even though it’s a lich ring, I wanna hear about your wife and how you lived, about your scars and what you did and all those things you were scared to tell Magnus or the others, I want to be in your life that way again,” Lup pleads. “We used to talk shit all the time, and we used to just, kiss and hang out, and I _miss_ it.”

“If that—Lup if that’s what will make you happy,” Lucretia says.

Lup shakes her head and grips her arm, jerking back with wide eyes and pinched lips. “No!”

Lucretia reaches for her hands again, startled by the way Lup recoiled from her. “Lup? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want it if it’s not what you want! I don’t want you to feel like you _have_ to go along with anything anymore, fucking fight for what you _want_ , Lucretia, not for some overall good or someone else’s benefit or because you’re desperate and don’t have a choice.”

Lucretia pauses, biting the inside of her cheek. She holds Lup’s hands tightly, quelling the tremor in those slender fingers. Lup should not ever quake, Lup should never beg for forgiveness or want things she cannot have, because she should have them all. These are Lucretia’s truths, molded from day one, her breath stolen from her by the haughty beauty and quicksilver tongue and given back by the gentle way she spoke to a young woman who was scared.

They were first formed out of awestruck worship, turning Lup into someone untouchable. That eased and ebbed away until those truths remained, but now out of the protective desire to see Lup happy. To see her feel safe and loved and to pamper her. She knows, logically, that Lup will inevitably be unhappy or scared or anxious, that Lup is prone to rashness that might hurt feelings or break things, and that no one can have everything they want, all the time.

But dammit, if she and Barry hadn’t tried back then. She thought Barry did a wonderful job of it, actually. He and Lup fit like two halves of a whole, synching up in ways that always brought wonder to Lucretia as she listened to them bounce ideas back and forth like playing catch.

It was Barry who posited the idea of their own home, who nudged her towards Goldcliff, who kept that note to bring her a new body. Lup has it all—youth and beauty and a body that won’t fail her, a fulfilling job and a lover who would—and _did_ — scour the planet to find her. A love to define and redeem, after all was said and done. A family that would do the same. A cute little house with a cute little garden and a wonderful kitchen. Lup has so many things that Lucretia is in awe of the stability that seemed to be just within Lup’s grasp.

The idea that Lup, now, felt unstable. That she was wanting for something she didn’t have—the idea that what she wanted was _her,_ it’s enough to bring Lucretia to her knees.

“You love me, and want… you want a relationship. With me. Like before.”

“Yes.”

“But I’ll never be Barry,” Lucretia says softly.

Lup pauses and sighs. “No, you won’t be. But I’ll never be Magnus. Or Maureen Miller,” she says evenly. “I’m only me, and Barry can never be you, Lucretia.”

Lucretia reaches up again and tucks a stray lock of hair behind Lup’s ear, letting her fingers trace the shell of her pointed ear. Her mouth feels dry, sticky. Her heart speeds in her chest, her eyes hot and prickling.

“And you want me… for me, now?” Lucretia asks softly, voice shaking. “Even though… all those things I did?”

Lup steps forward, back into Lucretia’s space, back so close that Lucretia can feel her breath again, feel the warmth of her body in the sticky heat of early Goldcliff summer. She can smell the lilac bush as a breeze kicks up from the river, making her shiver.

Lup cups her elbows, her thumbs rubbing slow circles into her skin, and another tremor shakes through her as Lup nods at her, turning her head to rest her cheek in her palm.

“Was it worth it?” Lup asks.

“You’ve asked me that before,” Lucretia murmurs. Her fingers wander across Lup’s jaw as she leans in. “A long… a long time ago. I didn’t know then.”

“And now?”

Lucretia remembers the heat of late summer, sweat sticking to her back, leaning back as the ghost of the woman she loved asked her if their suffering was worth it. The chain of asters are pressed in the pages of her journal, beside a spray of honeysuckle.

“You said it could be,” Lucretia answers. “And I think it was. And… me too, my… what I did, it may have been terrible, but all of the struggling… yes. Yes.”

“Then yes,” Lup murmurs. “Yes, even with what you’ve done, Lucretia. Not because of who you were, but now, again. Watching you now, I love you. It’s worth it, all of it.”

Lucretia smiles as heat builds in her gut, in her throat, on her face.

There’s a voice, one that sounds a bit like Taako and a bit like Magnus and a little like Lucas, that asks her if her decision is just because she likes the attention, because she likes being wanted, being loved.

And that’s not it, that’s not it at all. Of course everyone wants to be loved, but that isn’t why she’s doing this. She’s doing it because it’s _Lup_ , and Lup is an inexorable part of her heart. She presses her forehead to Lup’s once more, lips parted as she tips her head just so, and presses her lips to Lup’s.

Lup grips her elbows, then winds one arm around her waist, hand pressed flat over the center of her back, unknowingly pressing against the place where she was stabbed so long ago.

Lucretia smoothes her hand back through Lup’s hair, curling her hand against the base of her skull, laughing as Lup surges forward with her tongue as they kiss, making it messy and wet as they realign themselves, teeth clacking and noses bumping.

Lucretia pulls away reluctantly, combing her fingers through Lup’s hair over and over. “Inside?” she murmurs. “You promised breakfast and coffee.”

“Mmm, wanna kiss,” Lup murmurs, pressing her body flush to Lucretia’s.

“Yes,” Lucretia laughs, kissing Lup quickly. “We can do that too. Of course.”

Lup grins and flicks a finger. There’s a ripping noise and a blast of cold air, and suddenly, they’re falling, and then, they’re in Lup and Barry’s little kitchen.

“Awesome, time to kiss,” Lup declares as Lucretia gapes at her. “Smooch time. Let’s go.”

Lucretia laughs as Lup backs her up against the kitchen counter, wrapping her arms around Lup’s neck as she shakes her head.

“You’re incorrigible,” Lucretia whispers between kisses.

She means it, but it’s good. She’s happy, and for the first time in months, relaxed and carefree.

It’s good.


End file.
